


Light of All Lights

by nunwithgun



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood and Gore, F/F, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Rating May Change, will be warnings by chapter for scenes of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-01-16 03:41:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21264485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nunwithgun/pseuds/nunwithgun
Summary: The more she thinks, the more confused she finds herself. Dorothea knows that whoever was in the box that night makes her nervous beyond belief. She knows that she feels her pulse race and her breathing hasten like she's a cornered animal. Even now, she feels her heart flutter as she remembers.She also knows when that lilac gaze turns on her, she feels a strange pull in her chest that she cannot fully say is unwelcome there.----Vampire!Edelgard/Dorothea AU, set in a more 19th century-like Fódlan





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what happened. Here this is. Happy Halloween.

Dorothea Arnault does not get nervous.

The stage is all she knows, day in and day out, and she loves it so. She flourishes there, in the praises of crowds and critics alike. It has been nearly a decade since she sang her first aria, and she still thinks she will never tire of the trade. Stage fright is a thing of the distant past. She exudes the confidence bestowed by songstress after songstress before her. She is Mittelfrank's up-and-coming attraction.

Tonight, Dorothea is nervous, and she has no idea why.

The feeling sets in as soon as she strides onto the edge of the stage. She can feel a weight across her shoulders despite the fact that they are bare in her costume, and the back of her neck tingles as if winter has come to the main hall. Dorothea pauses for a heartbeat. Two. Three. She's frozen in place on her mark, now.

A worried stage hand tries his best to motion her off, but Dorothea is not one to gaff a performance for something as childish as a bad feeling. She is no rookie, and she has performed through illness and injury alike. This is nothing compared to the opening night that she once limped through on a broken ankle, after all. Dorothea straightens, extends an arm to her fellow actor at the middle of the stage, and twirls around on the balls of her feet exactly on beat.

She turns to face the crowd, and it all comes together.

There are two figures perched in Mittelfrank's premium box seating, and while their presence there is not at all unusual the aura they exude is quite the opposite. She can barely make out a man and a woman's form beyond the lights of the stage, but they ooze power over their balcony all the way to the curtain Dorothea stands beside. A lovely gaze of lilac seems to glow in the midst of their shadows, and she knows then that the shiver that runs down her spine is of its own creation.

_Strange, _Dorothea thinks to herself for a brief moment. But when she nearly misses the orchestra conductor's emphatic cue, she clears her mind and settles into the role of Astrid, Maiden of Myth, once more.

Dorothea does not let the feeling bother her, at least not too much. She sings as she has been taught, dances as she has practiced, weeps over her stage lover's corpse as she has many a time before. The feeling does not vanish in the slightest, but she begins to find an odd familiarity to it. Its pressure becomes second nature to her, like the added weight of costume's crown perched atop her head or a prop sword in her hand. She feels it, she accepts it, she trudges on.

When the opera finishes in a grand finale, she can't seem to find a dry eye in the house. Dorothea tries her best to make out the couple seated in the box, but they have vanished. Disappointment takes hold for a brief moment as the cast comes together on stage to perform their final bows. The roaring crowd before them does well to drown it all out, as it always does for her more somber emotions (at least for a little while).

The moment she leaves the stage for the night, the strange weight that plagued her performance dissipates immediately. Dorothea lets out a breath she is not aware she has been holding, hand coming to rest at her collarbone as she wonders over what has just happened.

Madame Casagranda meets her at her dressing room, breathing out praises and the smell of wine all at once. She compliments Dorothea on a job well done, as always, and wastes no time in giving her critiques of the night's performance. Dorothea is not listening.

Her mind is too busy wandering to the strangers in the crowd. She thinks of the pretty gaze and the darkness surrounding it, a contrast so dramatic one would have thought the true opera was taking place in the audience that night. With her teacher's voice droning on in the background, Dorothea has time to sit and think on the feeling that overwhelmed her as no stage fright ever has.

And the more she thinks, the more confused she finds herself. She knows that whoever was in the box that night makes her nervous beyond belief. She knows that she feels her pulse race and her breathing hasten like she's a cornered animal. Even now, she feels her heart flutter as she remembers.

She also knows when that lilac gaze turns on her, she feels a strange pull in her chest that she cannot fully say is unwelcome there.

Many in Enbarr have come to dub her the "Mystical Songstress" since her arrival. Perhaps it had been only a matter of time before she started attracting mystical guests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Edelthea train once again, if you're interested in my works be sure to check out my twitter @nunwithgun where I essentially rant about Fire Emblem wlw most hours of the day. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dorothea is not immune to Hot Lady Vampires

Dorothea has known Duke Aegir for nearly four months, now. He is a regular at the opera, and practically worships the ground Maneula Casagranda walks on. When he had heard of her new protege, Ferdinand von Aegir had leaped at the chance to help Dorothea acclimate to the enigma that was life in Enbarr.

Dorothea does not despise Ferdinand. Not anymore, at least. She is still not sure if she misjudged him at first or if their closeness has changed the Duke entirely. She only knows that the haughty, lineage-obsessed noble she met months ago for her first etiquette lesson is a much more kind man these days.

Enbarr is a place steeped in rich history, and as such its noble houses are as prominent as they are antiquated. He has been patient in the long, long process of learning the customs and courtesies required of high society. She does not understand the reasoning behind half of what he tries to explain to her, but she is thankful none-the-less for his help and what she has eventually come to understand as his friendship.

Dorothea knows ultimately that Ferdinand means well. But it's times like these that she finds herself wondering if he intentionally means to torture her or if he's still just a little bit daft.

Dorothea is waiting at the top of a grand staircase in the mansion of the Aegir Estate. She is dressed in clothes borrowed from Madame Casagranda, particularly a dress with the Divine Songstress's signature plunging neckline and a cloak of the finest fur to match. She feels that the style does not suit her in the slightest, but senior songstress had insisted that she wear something "befitting of a Mittelfrank diva".

She can hear Ferdinand's overblown introduction above the din of the crowd, loud and clear. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have brought a very special guest to tonight's gala. Please welcome Mittelfrank's newest star, Miss Dorothea Arnault!"

As always, Dorothea follows her cues to perfection. She lifts her chin, squares her shoulders, and gives the stage smile of a lifetime as the act begins.

Though she's descending the stairs to rousing applause, she feels her gut clench none the less. Dorothea wants to be anywhere but here, at this party surrounded by lords and ladies holding themselves so stiffly she thinks they might break if she even so much as brushes against them. She has never been an admirer of the nobility of Enbarr, or nobility in general for that matter. Being an orphan in her home village had been difficult enough without big city lords quartering their troops there or letting their debt collectors wreak havoc. Dorothea had lost count of the bruises and welts she had suffered at the hands of drunken soldiers and nobleman alike.

To be among them, accepted as one of their own all because of a pretty face and pretty voice, is nauseating.

But Ferdinand has been kind to her, and it has reached a point where it is difficult to say no when she has such a persuasive friend and an insistent mentor. The man in question's smile stretches from one ear to the other as she goes from the bottom of the stairs directly to his side. This is far from her first time being the center of attention, but she very much feels out of her element when she is expected to be Dorothea Arnault as opposed to hiding being the mask of an opera heroine.

Ferdinand holds out his hand and she lays her fingers across his palm, practicing one of the many utterly ridiculous customs he had insisted that she learn. The fair-haired noble presses his lips to the knuckles of her bare hand, squeezes it once in reassurance before he loosens his grip. For all his theatrics, he seems to be keenly aware that his friend is unsettled. "You look as lovely as a rose tonight, Dorothea." 

"Compliments are always appreciated, Ferdie. But right now, I feel more like a show pony." She keeps her voice low, knowing that while the mouths on the nobles of Enbarr are large their ears are larger still. 

"Nonsense. There are several opera experts here tonight who specifically requested _your_ attendance. I could not possibly entertain all their questions on music theory without your help." He tries his best to shoo all her worries away with a wave of his hand. She appreciates the gesture, but it does not work in the slightest. "I think you will especially enjoy who is up next." The grin on Ferdinand's face borders on impish, which is beginning to be a bit concerning.

Dorothea shows her doubt in the tiniest of frowns, careful not to attract attention to herself. "If it's not the carriage driver arriving to whisk me away from here, then I doubt I'll be as interested as you think."

Ferdinand chuckles, undaunted by her remark as he returns to his place at the stairs to introduce his next pompous guest. He is announcing titles of great length and grandeur, but Dorothea does not care. She merely sips the wine she has been nursing since she first arrived at the front door and glances over the top of her glass at the two figures in the spotlight.

She chokes at the sight. 

They are an odd pair of pitch black and pearl white, a man and a woman linked arm in arm. The man is very much the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. It is not the man who steals Dorothea's breath away, though. 

The woman at his side is magnificent. She commands a feeling of awe across the entire room from her perfect posture alone, but Dorothea very much finds that the rest of her appearance is tailored to match. A gown of red and glinting gold trim hugs her form perfectly, and where the dress does not reach long gloves cover her skin in the conservative Enbarrian style. Her long white locks are twisted and curled ever so perfectly into a braid sweeping across the side of her head to curl into a neat bun in the back. She's beautiful. She's poised. She's _alert_. Even from afar, the songstress can see an edge to the lavender glint of her irises.

Dorothea Arnault is now undoubtedly nervous.

She does not realize the wine glass is still at her lips until the inebriated woman next to her takes her shoulder in a death grip to ask if she's enjoying herself. Dorothea can't help the grimace that crosses her face at the unwarranted touch. Thankfully, the lady is still aware enough to take the hint and she shuffles away like a moth to a flame when a handsome young bachelor passes by.

Meanwhile, the pair makes their way to the bottom of the stairs and a strange tension falls over the room. The applause that follows is not a roar, but a hesitant and gentle rumble as the nobles around them begin to talk among themselves. They reach the end of the procession, turn, and head straight for her.

The crowd parts easily for the man of the hour, and Ferdinand strides through with the two new faces in tow. There is a noticeable bound in his step as he makes his way to Dorothea. She supposes that something about the man and woman behind him puts him good spirits, as opposed to the rest of the uneasy room.

Ferdinand is chattering away, audible even among the shocked murmurs and stares from the crowd around him. "Hubert, you worry too much. This is the perfect opportunity to escape that dungeon you two call an office. It is time to socialize!" 

Hubert is a man that towers over the woman beside him and Ferdinand alike, easily a half a head taller than the latter. The stern crease of his brow makes Dorothea shiver, yet his voice has an almost melodic lilt to it as he replies, "I'm merely trying to prevent your callousness from causing yet another—"

"Dorothea!" Ferdinand is quite obviously unshaken by the sharp glance thrown his way by the taller man at his side. "I would like to introduce you to some dear friends of mine." 

"Please do," Dorothea breathes, immediately regretting her forwardness as the words fall past her lips.

If the man and woman before her notice, they pay no mind. Ferdinand beams all the same. "This is Her Grace Edelgard von Hresvelg, the Grand Duchess of Enbarr." He gestures towards the woman, the titles almost comically grand in comparison to her short stature. She radiates authority none the less, her chin tilting upward ever so slightly at the introduction. Ferdinand continues, "Her companion is the Count, Hubert von Vestra."

The Grand Duchess? Dorothea manages to contain her surprise to a startled blink. She is relatively new to the territory of Enbarr, having found her start through one of Mittelfrank's lesser troupes in the countryside far beyond its borders. It was not until Madame Casagranda visited that she was recruited to the main stage. Still, she has been performing here for nearly six months now, and this is the first she is hearing of any 'Grand Duchess'.

It's odd, really. Dorothea can't imagine how someone so captivating can escape anyone's mind.

The songstress gathers herself, offering a practiced smile and curtsy. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace." She even braves a polite nod in Count Vestra's direction, though the frigidness he radiates is near overwhelming. "My Lord."

"The pleasure is all ours," the Duchess replies. The upward turn at the corner of her lips is barely noticeable despite her words.

When she speaks, Dorothea has to put conscious thought to the mess of emotions that run through her brain. Her voice is smooth, level but not at all unpleasant. Her speech is practiced, not nearly articulate as the elegant Ferdinand's but befitting of a noble just the same. If Dorothea listens close enough (and she does, she's captivated), she can notice a slight drag in cadence upon every "s" that passes her lips. It's endearing, the songstress thinks.

But there is something about this woman that also screams at her to _run_, and that in itself is enough to jar Dorothea's smitten mind and keep her on her guard.

Ferdinand is a stark contrast to the cryptic aura of the two at his side. He is a man that very much prides himself in his appearance, from the long, ginger locks he has tamed into a ribbon-bound tail to his garish red tunic adorned in medals galore. "The three of us were inseparable during our days at the Academy. Would you believe that Edelgard and I were the leaders of our class?"

"She shouldn't," Hubert cuts in quickly before Dorothea can so much as open her mouth to reply, "since it's utterly untrue."

Ferdinand looks as if he's been shot. "You accuse me, a man of the esteemed Aegir name, of _lying _to make myself look better?"

"Exaggerating," Hubert corrects, though his mouth quirks up in a smirk of self-satisfaction. Ferdinand rolls his eyes in return. 

Dorothea is very much aware that the Duchess has not looked away from her since they began their conversation, and it's making it strangely hard to breathe. As the two men devolve into bickering, she gathers the resolve to finally meet Duchess Hresvelg's gaze in full.

Goddess, is she ever nervous. The woman before her is nearly immaculate, and Dorothea certainly does not feel practiced enough to even know where to begin. It is rare that she finds herself tongue-tied, even among nobility, but Duchess Hresvelg truly is something else entirely. 

The Duchess takes the awkward silence as invitation to speak. "You look lovely on stage, Miss Arnault."

"Pardon?" Dorothea tries not to let her brow furrow and ruin her delicate expression.

Duchess Hresvelg's brow, on the other hand, raises in realization. "Ah, my apologies. Hubert and I attended Mittelfrank's performance of _The Song of Astrid_ earlier this month." She wears a mask mostly free of emotion, something Dorothea is quite unused to seeing from the normally exaggerated nobles of the city. "We both enjoyed your company's take on the myth."

It all falls into place: the two shadowy forms, the lilac of her eyes. They were the mysterious audience members. Dorothea feels curiosity begin to gnaw away at her almost immediately.

"You flatter me, Your Grace." And she really does, for once. Dorothea is used to taking compliments from many prominent lords and ladies, but there's something quite different about the woman before her. She does not seem the type to give compliments freely, and much less the type to deign to talk to someone of Dorothea's station at all.

"I can certainly see why the call you 'mystical'." The Duchess is softening, if only slightly, as she speaks. Dorothea isn't quite sure what to make of it all, but she enjoys it none the less. "I found your performance in particular quite enchanting." 

_I could say the same for you,_ Dorothea thinks, but she doesn't dare let such an intimate remark escape aloud. Not yet, anyways. She feels a warmth blossom in her chest, her confidence bolstered in the sound of a pretty woman's praises.

"I would hope so. What would be the point of the opera if not to be drawn in by it all?" Dorothea is easing into the conversation, now, and she's not quite sure if the woman across from her is getting friendlier or if she's just getting drunker. Either way, she's willing to push the bounds a little bit.

The Duchess gives a carefully-restrained chuckle, nodding her head in agreement. "I suppose you have a point, there. Are you enjoying your time in Enbarr?"

"Not as much as I'd like," Dorothea admits wistfully. She's comfortable enough to make conversation, but still finds any way she can to occupy her nervous fingers. The songstress swirls the wine about in her glass and takes a quick sip before she continues, "I love the spotlight, just not when I'm off the stage. I hope you'll forgive me if I tell you all the customs and courtesies make me a bit nervous."

"That's unfortunate," Duchess Hresvelg says, but there's no disappointment in her expression. Though she betrays little on her face, Dorothea can swear that her tone now borders on being downright coy. "I've been trying to curry their favor ever since I took my father's position. If someone as new and stunning as yourself is having trouble with these crusty old nobles, I'm afraid I might as well just give up the act entirely."

A brief silence falls between them, and Dorothea considers many things in her now _very_ active mind. It's a mix of alcohol, attraction, and that ever present pull in her chest when she sees the Duchess's gaze fall upon her in what she now recognizes as a genuine admiration. Madame Casagranda had told her once never to let a good moment with a man pass her by, lest she end up middle-aged and a spinster chasing love for the rest of her days. Perhaps Dorothea will take her up on that piece of life advice, for once.

"You have the most beautiful eyes." She braves the compliment, leaves the formal titles by the wayside, grins at her sweet and sincere.

For a moment, Dorothea thinks the Duchess looks...startled? She straightens immediately at the words. "Is that so?"

Dorothea could honestly smack herself. And she had been doing so well, too. Noble women are always so much harder to read than their male counterparts. "Please forgive my forwardness, Your Grace. I meant no disrespect." She's doing her damage control now, mentally placing the blame on the wine for her presumptions.

"No, don't apologize. I've just..." The Duchess trails off, and her brows draw together in an emotion that Dorothea can't quite decipher. Is it confusion she sees there? Maybe frustration? Before Dorothea can place it, the woman before her gives perhaps the fairest smile she has ever seen. "I've never heard that before. Thank you, Miss Arnault."

Has Dorothea's heart stopped in her chest, or is the thudding so loud that she just can't hear anymore?

Hubert, of all people, comes to her rescue. "Your Grace, I believe your uncle would like to speak with you," he murmurs, though Dorothea has to strain to hear him.

Duchess Hresvelg's expression darkens much too easily. Dorothea sees that danger once again, and the instinct to flee crawls up her spine. She feels disappointment seep into the air as the woman before her composes herself once more; posture straightening, chin angling, jaw setting in determination. It both impressive and startling all the same to see her demeanor shift so drastically.

The Duchess links arms with her companion, every bit the mysterious noble she began the night as once more. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Arnault." She nods in Dorothea's direction, and the songstress wants to believe she can see the corner of her mouth twitch into a brief smile before the rigid mask finally falls into place. "I do hope we have the chance to speak again soon." 

"Likewise." Dorothea murmurs, a genuine smile of her own making its way onto her face for the first and likely only time of the night.

It's only when the enigmatic pair disappears into the crowd that Dorothea notices the weight that's been lifted from her shoulders much more.


	3. Chapter 3

"You can't be serious."

"I'm dead serious, Ingrid," Dorothea insists, glancing over the stable door at her friend on the other side. "What's the harm in wanting to see her again?"

Ingrid, Mittelfrank's newest stable master, scoffs as she heaves her saddle onto a grey yearling's back. The horse startles beneath the weight, and Ingrid tears her attention from the songstress to soothe him. Dorothea is left hanging for an answer, and not for the first time since their conversation started, either. Ingrid really is a far cry from Ferdinand when it comes to the chitchat between friends that Dorothea has grown fond of (now that she is able to afford time for friends, that is).

Ingrid and Dorothea arrived at Mittelfrank within a month of each other, but they have grown close ever since Ingrid had offered her a ride into town on a particularly rainy day. Dorothea was still only just shadowing Madame Casagranda at the time, and all too often "shadowing" meant fetching herbs to quell one of the Head Songstress's infamous hangovers. Ingrid is a challenge to Dorothea, in a way. She is gruff and straightforward, an ex-heiress running from a father intent on marrying her off for money. She cares little for the young men and women of the opera who whisper of her woes and can't seem to fathom why she would ever leave a life of nobility. She only cares with how well her newest gelding is doing, or whether or not the carriage horse is getting proper rest. Ingrid is duty bound, and Dorothea wants her to shirk that duty just once, if only for a minute. Such is their back and forth, and it continues even now as Ingrid is forced to halt the tacking of her horse to turn and face her friend. "Dorothea, I'm not even _from _Enbarr and I can tell you what trouble that woman is. Haven't you heard the rumors?"

Dorothea rolls her eyes to show her how little she cares for gossip. She seems to be surrounded by it these days, and while she's never one to turn down a good secret or two there are times where the maliciousness of it all makes her skin crawl. "Nearly ever other sentence that comes out of an Enbarrian mouth is a rumor."

Ingrid's face darkens considerably. "They say she's a monster." She says it as if it's something that Dorothea should've been able to tell by one glance at the Duchess, something obvious that even the most naive of children should be able to see.

Would a monster be able to smile bright as the sun itself? Dorothea has met many a nobleman at her dressing room after shows, casting beaming grins that felt more like the bearing of teeth. Duchess Hresvelg's expression had been nothing of the sort. "Well, that seems quite rude."

Ingrid’s nose scrunches up in irritation. “It’s not rude, it’s a fact. People go missing when they start asking questions about her. Most of them show up again in caskets."

Now Dorothea knows it's all exaggeration. She shrugs it off in turn. "For a terrible monster that murders people, she's quite beautiful."

Ingrid's look is so incredulous that Dorothea thinks her jaw might drop off of her face entirely. When the songstress gives her a coy smile in response, she grumbles something under her breath and busies herself with saddling the horse once more. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

"Partially, yes," Dorothea admits, leaning over the stall door to pick little bits of hay and grain out of Ingrid's hair. It appears that she's been sleeping in the stables again, likely to make sure the yearling before her now is making a proper adjustment to his new home. "But you can’t tell me you’re not curious, Ingrid."

"Of course I'm curious." Ingrid lengthens the stirrups of her saddle and casts a glance over her shoulder, though she doesn't seem to mind the songstress's touch. They've built an easy bond over the months, though this is one of the few times she seems to be relaxed enough around Dorothea to slow down and simply listen. "I'm also not dumb enough to stick my nose where it very obviously doesn't belong."

Well, perhaps the slowing down can only last for so long. Dorothea huffs as theatrically as she can, throwing her arms over the side of the stable door to hang across it in exasperation. "Ingrid, has anyone ever told you that you need to lighten up?"

"You're not the first to tell me, and I'm sure you won't be the last," Ingrid says, and Dorothea isn't quite sure if it's a lament or a boast as the stable master plants a foot in her stirrup and swings herself on top of her steed. She takes a moment, stroking his neck with soft murmurs of reassurance as he paws at the ground nervously. Dorothea thinks she can make out the slightest hint of worry in Ingrid's gaze as she turns it to her friend once more. "But I'd rather be a stick in the mud than caught up in some fussy noble's weird affairs. My father's taught me that much."

Dorothea sighs and undoes the latch, pulling the door aside and begrudgingly granting the exit to the conversation the stable master has been wishing for since it began. "Well if you won't live a little, Ingrid, I suppose I'll have to do it for you."

Ingrid shakes her head, but despite only meeting the songstress four months ago she seems to already know there is little that will change her mind. She clucks to her steed with a light kick, glancing over her shoulder as they near the stable's exit. "Whatever you say, Dorothea."

* * *

The Duchess and the Count attend the showings of _Astrid _four times more before Dorothea is finally able to speak to them again. Each time that eerie presence settles over her, she finds herself running from her dressing rooms after the performance like a woman possessed. She supposes she makes an odd picture, with splotches of makeup still on her face and in the barest remnants of her stage outfit, all covered only by a cloak for modesty.

But each time, she misses their quick exit and her chance at seeing those beautiful lavender eyes once more.

On the fifth visit, a rainy day in Enbarr, she is just lucky enough to catch the pair as they step into their carriage.

"Duchess Hresvelg!" Dorothea calls out from afar, and the woman's head snaps up as if the songstress is standing right beside her.

She frowns as Dorothea approaches, not at all unkind but very much confused all the same. "Miss Arnault?" There's that voice again, and the note of surprise that creeps in makes it that much more lovely. The Duchess glances from her companion back to the songstress's soaked form, considering. She finally shoos the Count into the carriage, taking the umbrella he holds in his hands and ushering Dorothea underneath. Duchess Hresvelg's brow creases, and Dorothea is surprised how her mask has fallen now that it is just the two of them. "Is something wrong?"

_Yes,_ Dorothea thinks immediately. She's standing deathly still in the rain, glancing down at that woman she thought couldn't be any more beautiful than she was the other night. And yet Duchess Hresvelg seems all the more radiant in an outfit much more simple. Still, Dorothea finds herself at a loss for words at the way her white locks cascade down across her shoulders, the way the gem in her elegant headpiece somehow matches the exact shade of her eyes, the way Duchess's Hresvelg's gloved fingers brush across the bare skin of her forearm as she pulls her closer to shield her from the rain...

And suddenly she's making a fool of herself by gaping, and the Duchess is looking all the more concerned.

"I'm sorry for bothering you, Your Grace." Dorothea rings the water out of her hair to keeps her hands from otherwise fiddling aimlessly. The Duchess's touch falls away, and Dorothea feels a slight pang of regret at her unfortunate jitters. She supposes that now that she cannot rely on the wine of the last meeting, she must now deal with her mess of feelings while tragically sober.

"Please, Edelgard will do just fine." The Duchess tries to smile, but it's not nearly the same with the worry that plagues her expression. "My titles are a mouthful that I have little patience for. Now, what's wrong?"

Dorothea nods in understanding, though she decides to forgo the informality for the time being. She's not sure she has the time to process it, and she's still somewhat afraid that the Duchess will slip through her fingers if she wastes even a second more. Dorothea has spent nearly a week and a half trying to catch this very moment. She'll be damned if she lets anything get in the way of it, now.

"I'd like to spend some time with you. Some more time. Perhaps at Duke Aegir's estate, or over a cup of tea." Thankfully, no wine is needed to blurt out as much. Dorothea's raw feelings do the job for her, stilted phrases sliding past nervous lips with just a little too much ease. "Anywhere, really. I just want to—"

Her words are cut short by a woman's terrified screech, and when Dorothea turns she is faced with a driver-less carriage barreling directly towards them.

Edelgard surges forward to wrap her arms around Dorothea without a second thought, tucking the taller woman’s head against her shoulder to cover her as best she is able. Dorothea doesn’t even have time to react before the carriage wheels make impact. A sickening lurch of Edelgard’s body against her own sends her world spinning, and she screws her eyes shut as the ground rushes up to meet them. They tumble for what seems like forever before everything finally goes still, Edelgard still draped across her trembling form despite it all.

Dorothea opens her eyes to find glowing purple hues staring back. Quite literally glowing, in fact. The feeling from her night on the stage settles in on her once more, and this time it's overwhelming. She's choking underneath the pressure on her chest, a drumming noise thrumming through her skull with every pulse she feels deep in her veins. Her throat constricts beyond her control, and between that and the wind that's been knocked from her lungs in the impact she's almost convinced she's drowning on land.

Edelgard blinks, and the feeling recedes instantaneously alongside the glow of her eyes. "Are you hurt? Were you hit?" She's not waiting for a reply, already trailing her hands up and down Dorothea's sides for any sign of injury.

Dorothea gasps in as much air as she can and frantically shakes her head, still recovering from...whatever just came over her. "I'm fine, I'm fine." She speaks to reassure both Edelgard and her own racing heartbeat at once. She is very much far from being fine, but she's also very practiced in convincing herself as much.

"Good." Edelgard's relief is breathed out in a single, long exhale and her eyes drift shut. Her body shudders with each movement, and if Dorothea thought her unmasked before then she is completely bare now. Her shoulders slump, chin curling to her chest as she seems to take the time to recompose herself.

"Thank you." Dorothea's reply is equally as shaky, and she carefully lays her palm against the Duchess's arm to help steady her. It is drenched in water, sticky from where they have skidded about in the mud and puddles of the street. Her headpiece has been thrown somewhere into the street, and Dorothea is only able to find where it's landed by the trail of crimson leading to it.

A trail of crimson. A trail of red. A trail of...?

It takes a moment for her to realize that the water on her hands is, in fact, blood, and that Edelgard's side, from her knee to her neck, is nearly shredded apart.

Dorothea can't help but gasp, heart clenching in her chest at the horrid wound. "Edelgard, you're—" Terror takes her voice from her. The woman before her is bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and...

Edelgard merely stares in confusion, unaffected. "What is it?" 

"Your side, it's completely—" But before Dorothea can get the words out, she's shocked to see the wound in question closing of its own accord.

She wants to think that she’s dreaming, or perhaps even unconscious from the accident. Somehow, a coma seems preferable to watching skin and muscle knit together at a pace far from natural. Edelgard's wounds creep together underneath the blood that pools around them, sealing themselves more tightly than the best surgeon in Enbarr ever could. Dorothea finds her mouth agape as her eyes trail along the edges of each cut vanishing from sight.

And then, suddenly, it's as if nothing has ever been there. If not for the tears in Edelgard's dress and the reddened skin where her wounds used to be, Dorothea could be convinced she imagined the whole thing.

Edelgard looks down at herself and immediately stiffens. "I—It's not—" She stammers, unable to find the right words and Dorothea really doesn't blame her. Dorothea can't find the right words either, and she merely sits there wondering when she'll wake up from this odd hallucination she's having.

Hubert is at their side in the blink of an eye, clasping a gloved hand across Edelgard's shoulder. She doesn't even flinch at his touch, right where her cloak is torn open in a way that had exposed a nasty rash from the cobblestone just moments ago. "Your Grace, we need to leave." His voice is unusually tense, his eyes darting left and right in a skittish manner uncharacteristic of the stoic Count that Dorothea had met the other night.

Conflict passes over the Duchess's gaze. It's as if Edelgard's mask has been completely shattered this time, and she's too torn herself to pick up the pieces. Her face twists in worry as she glances from her unmarked side to Dorothea, but Hubert's insistent tug on her arm finally tears her from Dorothea's side. 

"I'm sorry" is the only goodbye Dorothea gets as the two disappear into their carriage and their carriage disappears into the busy streets.

The man she assumes is the carriage's driver appears at her side, apologies pouring from his lips uncontrollably as he begins to check her for wounds with a touch much more gruff and careless than that of the Duchess. She finds that his words fade out all too quickly as she glances down at the pools of blood staining the side of her dress. They are not her own, she's alert enough to recognize that much. But if the blood is not hers, the blood is Edelgard's. And if the blood is Edelgard's, that means that what Dorothea had thought hallucination is very much real.

Dorothea knows then that something about Edelgard von Hresvelg is much more mysterious than she ever could have imagined. She also knows then that she must know more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick chapter! Taking a break this coming week to work on my other Edelthea/Dorogard fic, Finding Harmony, so it may be a bit of a wait for the next chapter of this. Thanks for all the support so far as this really starts to get off the ground!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ingrid voice] Dorothea you useless lesbian

“I told you something bad would happen.”

Dorothea scowls at her friend. While she’s certainly not at all incorrect, it’s hardly been an hour since the incident itself and she’s not fond of receiving a stern talking to alongside her first aid. “Ingrid, can you please listen instead of just scolding me like a child?”

Ingrid scowls right back at her, drags the antiseptic across her cobblestone rash for emphasis. Dorothea jumps at the callous touch and pulls away, to which the stable master gives a half-hearted apology and returns to her work. “I am listening,” she insists between strokes, “and I’m hearing you being an utter fool. You could have been _ killed_, Dorothea! And all you can think about is this crazy hallucination you had?”

“I wasn’t hallucinating. I didn’t even hit my damned head.” Dorothea is quick to snap at Ingrid in reply, but she does run her fingers through her hair with her free hand to check for blood (just in case). She knows her story is ridiculous, and she knows how hard it is to believe. The picture in her mind is still as clear as day, despite it all. “Even if I dreamed about her healing like she did, I know for a fact I saw her covered in blood. I didn’t imagine that, I saw it.”

Ingrid says nothing in reply, content to let Dorothea run in circles of her own logic and wear herself out. The songstress bites at her lip and winces when she realizes it might have busted in the impact. She supposes she’ll have to eventually come up with an explanation for Mittelfrank’s director as to why she can’t wear her stage lipstick for the next few performances.

Dorothea’s eyes wander about Ingrid’s room as the stable master finds gauze to press against her wound. She’s been here only once or twice in the four months they’ve known each other, mostly to wake Ingrid for help carrying a drunken Madame Casagranda to her room or to deliver a meal or two when the stable master fell ill.

Ingrid must care about her, at least enough to bring her and treat her here following the accident. She _ has _ to believe her if Dorothea presses hard enough. “Something isn’t right about her,” the songstress insists again.

Ingrid sighs in frustration as she ties the gauze above the rash in place. For all her complaining over the situation, she’s done such a good job that Dorothea has to wonder where she learned to patch people up so well. A question for another time, perhaps, because Ingrid finally finds her voice as she packs her medical supplies back into a rusted tin. “When I said the Duchess was a monster, I didn’t mean it literally. But I think this only proved my point that being around her is dangerous."

Dorothea turns to face her on the bed, now, so Ingrid can’t help but see the sincerity in her gaze. “Duchess Hresvelg risked her life to save mine. I would hardly call that ‘dangerous’.”

“If Duchess Hresvelg wasn’t on your mind all the time, perhaps you wouldn’t have run into the damn road in the first place.” The stable master doesn’t even bother to meet Dorothea’s gaze as she flops back onto her bed, eyes now fixed on the ceiling above.

“Damn it, Ingrid.” Dorothea can’t help but curse and she pulls her jacket back over her shoulders before she can say anything more crass. “Jab at me all you want. I know what I saw and I’m going to figure it out, _ monster _ or not.” She makes sure to mock her friend’s silly insistence on the word as she leaves the bedroom in a huff.

“Like a moth to a flame,” Ingrid murmurs under her breath, and it’s the last thing Dorothea hears before she slams the door shut behind her.

* * *

For once in his life, Ferdinand avoids conversation more than Ingrid.

Dorothea arrives at the Aegir Estate early in the morning, but her hopes of a quick visit are dashed. After hours of chasing the Duke through the halls as he flits about between party planning activities she feels her stomach start to protest the arrival of lunchtime.

When she finally pins him down long enough to chat, Ferdinand dances around her questions with an ease that almost seems practiced. 

“Did you know the Duchess before the Academy?”

“Of course. All nobles know each other in one way or another.”

“When did you and the Duchess first meet?”

“When we were both teenagers.”

“How long ago was that?”

Ferdinand pauses, grins. “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

“Ferdinand.” Dorothea lowers her voice and glances around the ballroom they end up in with caution. The servants have seemed to disappear, and though the songstress finds it eerie she is thankful for the lack of prying eyes and ears on their conversation. “I watched the Duchess heal in seconds and walk away from a carriage accident. No wounds, no trauma, nothing of the sort.”

Ferdinand merely smiles, and for a moment Dorothea is afraid that he will write off her worries just as Ingrid has done. His eyes flicker to the bandage that runs down her arm, and something in them connects all the pieces together at once. “That sounds like quite a feat.”

“It was.” Dorothea sees the recognition in his gaze. She presses further. “What do you know of it?”

“Enough,” is all he gives in reply, at first. When she glares at him, frustrated that a man normally so transparent has turned vague, he offers a bit more. “Dorothea, there is much about Edelgard that you do not know, and much to be uncovered. If you go down that road, I must warn you that I am not sure you will like what you find.”

Dorothea frowns, quite unsure of what to make of such a statement. She _ is _sure, however, that Ferdinand’s ambiguity is becoming annoying. “I doubt I’ll find much of anything, if Count Vestra and Duchess Hresvelg are as cryptic as you are.”

“That is because it is not my secret to tell.” The Duke taps a finger to his temple and then puts it to his lips, and for once Dorothea finds herself irritated with his theatrics. “If you are looking for answers, look no further than the woman herself. She _ has _been worried over you, after all.”

Dorothea can’t help the flush that rises to her cheeks at the thought. She hardly knows whether to be flattered or frightened by the Duchess’s persistent attention, but she finds herself so often falling into the former category. The thought of meeting her face to face again is nerve-wracking in a number of ways.

“Now, if you will excuse me,” Ferdinand says, breaking through her thoughts all at once, “I have to keep working on the preparations for the Aegir Winter Ball. Feel free to lounge about a bit longer, if you’d like a preview, but I assure you the real thing will be much, much better.” He pauses, as if he’s forgotten a key detail. “You will be attending the Ball, correct?”

Dorothea shifts uncomfortably at the idea, though she has to admit her memory of Ferdinand’s last party lingers fondly in her mind. There are bigger topics at hand, though. “I suppose I can’t very well say no to you, Ferdie, but—”

“Just as I thought. You’ll love it, I promise.” And with that, he’s closed the door on anything Dorothea hopes to discover as he makes his way back towards the main hall. Ferdinand throws a devilish grin over his shoulder as he goes, a bit too mischievous and mysterious even for him. “Who knows, perhaps you could even convince Edelgard to come along?”

He disappears into the hallway before she can say a word in response.

Dorothea decides not to linger, as the emptiness of the ballroom seems to close in on her all too quickly without Ferdinand there. She makes her way back to his stables, starting home on one of Ingrid’s carriage horses that she’s borrowed for the day.

The trip back to Mittelfrank seems to take much longer than usual as thoughts swirl like a tempest through her head. Visiting Ferdinand has left nearly all her questions unanswered and raised many more. She can't wipe the thought of his beaming smile from her mind, suddenly much too layered and complex for the cheerful man she normally knows.

Have Ferdinand's canines always been so prominent?

* * *

Dorothea does not expect anything from her visit to the Duchess’s estate, and yet she receives everything in return.

She sits in the parlor of a grand mansion, confused and curious as to how the doorman even recognized her to let her inside. She doesn’t get the chance to ask him before he hurries off to another, apparently much more pressing matter.

Strangely enough, the Count himself is the one that retrieves her. Dorothea still doesn’t quite know what to make of Hubert von Vestra, especially when his towering form comes a bit too close for comfort. He looms over her, lips pulling into a smile that she can’t quite tell from a sneer. “Right this way, Miss Arnault.”

Count Vestra moves through the mansion with ease, taking turn after turn as if he knows the route intimately. The silence between them is only punctuated by the click of his heels before he decides to break it of his own accord. “I’m very glad to see you well. We were quite concerned for you following that horrible accident.”

Quite concerned, is it? Dorothea barely bites back a scoff at the statement. The way he and the Duchess took off after the affair seemed to suggest otherwise, she thinks. She knows it must be due to the oddity that is Duchess Hresvelg’s unnatural healing, but it doesn’t dull the sting of being abandoned in the street any less.

But Dorothea smiles, as she always does. “I’m just grateful you both were there to help. I shudder to think what would have happened if the Duchess hadn’t stepped in to save me.”

The Count nods, but the crease in his brow suggests that he doesn’t quite agree. “How different our lives would be, hm?”

Dorothea chooses to ignore the cryptic statement. Count Vestra leads her in silence down a long hallway lined with portraits of brunette nobles from long ago. She assumes they are the late Grand Dukes and Duchesses of Enbarr. One fading painting depicts an especially large family, with a swath of children that all share their mother’s lavender eyes. Dorothea wonders where the rest of the Duchess’s own family are, and why it seems that only she and Count Vestra are the only occupants of a mansion built for many more.

Before she can think too much into the matter, Count Vestra leads her through a tall door of oak to what Dorothea quickly realizes is the Duchess’s personal quarters.

The woman of the hour sits at a table cloaked in lace, and for a moment Dorothea’s afraid she will forget the purpose of her visit entirely. The Duchess is leagues less formal than their last two encounters or any time Dorothea has seen her at the opera. She wears only black trousers—trousers on a Duchess!—and a loose-fitting white blouse that’s laced just enough to leave a bit to the imagination. Her hair falls freely past her shoulders, and it would be easy to mistake her outfit for sleepwear if not for the black gloves and boots she has on. She’s lounging there, at ease, in her own element, and yet something about her seems to stiffen when she sees Dorothea.

At least, Dorothea thinks it does. She hopes that she’s growing more familiar with the Duchess, attuned to the smaller gestures and not just letting her imagination run wild. “Good afternoon, Your Grace,” she greets with her best curtsy.

The Duchess waves her gesture aside immediately. “Please, there’s no need for that here. Have a seat.” Dorothea does, and the smaller woman hands her cup of tea that smells of citrus. “I was actually hoping you’d come to visit.”

Dorothea purses her lips as a certain redhead comes to mind. “Ferdinand told you to expect me, didn’t he?”

“He did, yes,” Edelgard admits readily. “That doesn’t make it any less of a delight to have you here.”

Dorothea feels a smile creep to her face at the compliment, and for a moment she forgets a bit of the larger issue at hand and allows herself to indulge in conversation with the Duchess. “Have you gotten your fill of the opera? I haven’t seen you in the box seats lately.”

“Not at all!” Edelgard’s answer is so hurried it startles even herself for a moment, and she pauses to rein her demeanor back in. “Hubert’s been a bit wary of us going anywhere since the accident. I also suspect he tired quickly of seeing the performance over and over again.” She chuckles awkwardly, and the sound is lovely to Dorothea’s ears.

This is new, and not at all unwelcome. Sitting with the Duchess, talking with the Duchess, laughing with the Duchess. Dorothea struggles to keep the topic she came for afloat in the midst of it all. “Well it’s good to see the accident hasn’t shaken you too much, Your Grace.”

The Duchess frowns, suddenly, and it wouldn’t be entirely unfitting to say she looks a bit hurt for a moment. “Didn't I say before to just call me by my name?”

Dorothea shifts in her chair at the thought. “Edelgard,” she tries again reluctantly, and the familiarity feels foreign on her tongue.

“Dorothea,” the Duchess says in reply, and the corner of her mouth pulls up in a tiny grin as it rolls from her lips. “It's a lovely name, really.”

Dorothea feels her smile harden in place. She hates her name. Despises it, even. She feels the further and further from being a ‘gift of the Goddess’ with each passing day, each hardship and tragedy. If the Goddess is the one who allowed her father to abandon her, the same one who watched as her mother wasted away in the shoddy bed of an inn and did nothing as her younger self suffered in the gutters of her village, then Dorothea wants nothing to do with Her.

She does not say as much, content to let the matter lie and stir a few sugar cubes into her cup. For as much as Dorothea seems to conceal, Edelgard has ten times more to uncover. She chews at her bottom lip in frustration, mind working a mile a minute on how to get to the bottom of it all.

Another sip of tea and pinpricks run across Dorothea’s shoulders. She feels the hair on the back of her neck raise in alarm, and her heartbeat begins to thud at the walls of her chest. Something feels distinctly, utterly wrong, all of the sudden. 

She glances up to meet Edelgard’s gaze, and the Duchess is staring at her with an expression that makes her skin crawl. “Is something the matter?” Dorothea asks, because she knows her own nerves are screaming at her that there is.

As if roused from a stupor, Edelgard blinks and promptly screws her eyes shut. Her hand comes to the bridge of her nose as if she’s just developed a splitting headache. “No, not quite.” She chuckles, but this time the noise is strangled with tension. “I think...I’m sorry, it’s just—did you cut your lip?”

Dorothea frowns, but the red smeared at the rim of her cup explains the Duchess’s guess. She quickly dabs her napkin at her bottom lip, soaking up the blood there and cursing herself for stupid habits. “Goddess, I’m sorry about that. I’m fine, really. It’s just a scratch from the other day.”

“Ah, I see,” Edelgard says, but she’s looking everywhere but Dorothea. She takes a few more sips of her tea and the songstress notes the next swallow is hard, nervous. Dorothea wonders if the topic of wounds makes her uncomfortable, for obvious reasons.

“How about you? Are you recovering well?” Dorothea supposes it is as good a time as any to address the elephant in the room.

“Quite.” The answer is short and curt, and it is painfully obvious that Edelgard wishes to move on from the topic before it can even be properly raised.

Dorothea finds her determination. She knows what she has seen, and will not let the matter lie now that she has drawn the courage to travel all the way to the Hresvelg Estate to address it. “How are your wounds?”

Edelgard’s eyes flicker over the edge of her cup for a brief moment as she takes another sip, but she betrays nothing in her expression. “Close to healing up entirely. It’s amazing what modern medicine and proper rest can do.”

“Strange how well that combination works, isn’t it?” Dorothea is prodding, she knows it. Edelgard doesn’t respond, attention now fixed on the intricate designs woven into the table cloth. The songstress presses onward. “Almost as if by magic.”

Dorothea is practiced enough in acting to see the break in character as the space between Edelgard’s brow creases. She is frustrated, concerned, uncomfortable. Her nostrils flare as she breathes in and out deeply before rounding her gaze at the songstress. “I think you're a bit mistaken in what you think you saw.” The Duchess speaks slowly, pointedly, and she leans further over the table as each word leaves her lips.

Her body tingles when Edelgard looks at her. She knows now that she’s not mistaken in seeing the flare in the smaller woman’s eyes, a glow reminiscent of the first thing Dorothea had seen after the carriage accident. But the weight that creeps across her shoulders is nothing in comparison to the irritation she feels at the Duchess’s suggestion. She’s heard the excuse from Ingrid and Ferdinand already; she will _ not _ accept the same from the woman herself. 

“No, I’m not.” Dorothea is quite proud of the confidence in her voice as she frowns at the Duchess across from her. “I saw your wounds, Edelgard. I saw them vanish right there on the street, too.” 

For a moment, Edelgard looks as if she’s seen a ghost. Dorothea hadn’t though she could get any paler, but the Duchess looks white as a sheet as she stares at her guest in what almost seems like disbelief. Then, just as soon as the expression surfaces, it’s gone. Edelgard straightens in her chair once more, those lavender eyes of hers diverted back to her teacup for the time being.

Silence hangs in the air, and it frustrates Dorothea so. No denial, but no solid confirmation to prove her memory correct. 

She takes the plunge. “What _ are _you, Edelgard?”

The Duchess’s fingers curl against the table, the furrow at her brow growing ever deeper. Her mask is falling apart once again, and if Dorothea can look close enough she thinks she can see between the cracks. She’s upset and cornered all at once, reliving something that seems far beyond the songstress’s comprehension.

“A survivor,” Edelgard says at last, and the look in her eyes is dangerously distant. Suddenly Dorothea realizes Ferdinand was not far off in that there is much to be uncovered there.

Dorothea decides for another angle to her line of questioning. “Why did you save me?”

Edelgard perks up immediately, her eyes finally raising to meet the songstress’s own. She looks confused, so Dorothea continues, “We’re hardly more than strangers to each other, but you still threw yourself in front of a carriage for me. Showed..._ whatever _ you are to the world for me.”

For a moment, it seems Edelgard doesn’t have an answer. Oddly enough, the talk of motives and feelings seems to put her in a state of distress far quicker than the questioning on her true identity. “You’ve been kind to me, Dorothea. Much more than you know.” She looks so forlorn then as she stirs her tea, trying to find anything to focus on but the conversation at hand. “Much more than anyone has in a long while.”

Edelgard pauses again, frowns down at her drink. There’s something on the tip of her tongue, Dorothea can tell as much, and so the songstress lets the silence lie for once. The crease in her brow softens ever so slightly as the right words make their way to help lips. “I could hardly bear the thought of someone as kind as you being hurt.” She delivers the line so sincerely it strikes right to Dorothea’s heart.

“You sound quite lonely,” Dorothea notes, and it’s not so much an insult as it is an outstretched hand.

Edelgard smiles, but it’s so shockingly hollow that Dorothea feels her chest tighten in sympathy. Though she’s only known the Duchess a short time, she’s never seen her make an expression so fake and yet so revealing all at once. “I suppose that’s the price you pay for immortality.”

Her pointed canines flash as she speaks, and Dorothea is convinced that her heart has frozen alongside the rest of her body.

The same as Ferdinand’s.

The same _ fangs _.

The lines are all connecting and Dorothea can’t even speak. Although she can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed her mind a number of times since the accident, hearing the word on Edelgard’s lips is another experience entirely.

She’s still sitting there, probably gaping, wondering about Ferdinand and Count Vestra’s involvement in it all when Edelgard rises from her chair. The Duchess brushes off her shirt as if the last few moments were all just a dream. “I’m afraid that’s all the time I have today, Dorothea. I’ll send Hubert to see you out,” she says with all the grace and poise in the world before she steps past the songstress to make her exit.

Dorothea starts to protest, moves to stop her leaving so many questions unanswered, but the sight of Count Vestra’s ghastly visage in the doorway stills her in place. Edelgard spares her one last glance, eyes and expression impossible to read before she finally disappears behind him.

Despite the whirlwind that their visit has been, Dorothea feels a pang in her chest as she watches her go. When her eyes return to the plate before her, she notices a neatly-folded square of cloth has appeared there while she had been lost in thoughts of sharpened teeth and lavender eyes. She wonders what to take from their encounter, from the sudden revelation, from their curious relationship. She wonders with a bit of fear whether Edelgard means to ever meet with her again.

The letters on the handkerchief before her, bold and brilliant red, give her the confirmation she needs.

“** _E.H._ **”

* * *

Dorothea returns to the opera house later than expected, the sun slinking below the horizon as she hikes up her dress and climbs the winding staircase to the dormitories.

Hunger is the last thing on her mind after the conversation with the Duchess, so she decides to scurry past the crowded dining hall. Ingrid is there, after all, and more importantly Madame Casagranda is there. Dorothea by no means feels like being harassed over the “secret admirer” her instructor has astutely noticed, especially with Edelgard’s handkerchief clutched tightly to her chest.

Dorothea bites back a groan of frustration as she still finds her teacher standing outside her room, dressed in the long white cape she always wears no matter the weather. At the sound of Dorothea’s footsteps, the elder songstress perks up and turns to face her.

“Good evening, Mada—” Dorothea’s voice catches. The woman that stands before her is distinctly not Madame Casagranda, nor is she anyone Dorothea has ever seen before. She is unbelievably tall, towering over Dorothea by a head or more. Pale locks of a mint shade fall across the front of what the songstress recognizes as a priest’s robes.

“Good evening, child.” The woman smiles, and the same fear that fell across Dorothea when Duchess Hresvelg first laid eyes on her at the opera so long ago seizes her once more. “My name is Rhea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again with the songstress and the Duchess dancing around the truth as well as ~*~something more~*~. Exams have been one after the other, so I hope I'll be able to get some more of these chapters in as things wind down for Winter Break. I'm sorry I haven't been super responsive to comments, but starting from this chapter onward I'm gonna change that, I promise! Thanks for the read!


	5. Chapter 5

Dorothea just smiles back. 

The woman before her radiates power if Dorothea has ever felt it. She stands with her hands clasped together, shoulders slack with a posture that on anyone else would seem inviting. There’s something different about this woman, though. Something much more.

An uneasy silence passes. Rhea just stands there through it all, as if she’s right where she’s meant to be. “You are Dorothea Arnault, correct?”

“I am,” Dorothea replies simply.

Rhea nods, though it’s obvious she never doubted the assumption in the first place. She merely needs to move the conversation along. “I’m quite sorry if I startled you. The staff in the dining room told me that I could find you here.” Her explanation offers little to her identity or her purpose, and Dorothea feels the tension at the back of her neck growing as her anxiety rises. Something is, once again, definitively wrong. “May we speak more inside?”

“Of course.” Dorothea relents despite her misgivings, and she slides the cloth into the pocket of her cloak for good measure as she leads the minister into her personal quarters.

Dorothea’s room is thankfully not too messy, if only for the fact that she’s been too preoccupied by her opera duties and hunting down the Duchess to spend much time in it. She pulls a chair from her desk to the table she has by the window and offers it to Rhea. The minister smiles, thanks her, and sits down to look out at the nightlife of Enbarr.

Once again, silence falls over them. Dorothea’s anxiety turns to frustration all too quickly. She’s spent more time than she’s ever wanted with Ferdinand and Edelgard being cryptic beyond belief, and to find the same in a stranger she’s never even seen before is just a bother. “What brings you to Mittelfrank?”

Rhea finally turns to her, laying her hands across the table and mustering a worried look. Dorothea can’t quite tell if it is genuine or not; the priest seems ten times the mystery that Edelgard has ever been. “I understand you've been involved in an accident very recently. I wanted to visit you to make sure everything was alright.”

Dorothea stiffens. The local cathedral is a good mile or two away from Mittelfrank. The chances that a holy woman would be venturing that far from her home, in the rain, on the exact day and hour of the accident, is strikingly slim. “That’s kind of you,” she says, words short and sharp despite herself.

Rhea seems to clue in to the wariness in her voice, and she folds her hands on the tabletop with an ever-softening expression. “Manuela is a parishioner of our church. When she mentioned you had experienced a brush with death, only to be saved by a mysterious stranger, I couldn't help but stop by.”

Madame Casagrandra. Dorothea had known word of the accident would have been spread on her teacher’s lips within a matter of days, but she had envisioned it being in a dimly-lit bar to strangers and most certainly not in a confessional to a priest. 

In the moments it takes for Dorothea’s mind to churn and worry, Rhea takes the opportunity to speak further on the matter. “Another parishioner of ours told me that he could’ve sworn that the woman saving your life was our Grand Duchess, herself.”

“That’s correct.” In light of her most recent conversation with the Duchess, Dorothea finds herself guarded when the topic rears its head once more. “If it weren’t for her, I’m afraid I don’t think I’d be sitting here speaking with you.”

Rhea nods and smiles sweetly, steepling her hands together almost as if she’s about to pray right then and there. “And thank the Goddess for that.” 

Dorothea bites back her retort. The Goddess has nothing to do with it, she thinks. It was Edelgard who took the blow, risked her life and identity.

Once again, Rhea seizes the silence. “Manuela tells me you and the Grand Duchess have grown quite fond of each other.”

Dorothea feels the tightness at the back of her neck ripple down her spine, and second by second she’s growing more and more uncomfortable with the priest’s pale green gaze. “I wouldn’t presume to know how she feels about me, but I enjoy the time I’ve spent with her.”

Rhea nods thoughtfully, and she stares out the window for a few moments more. It’s apparent she’s thinking, and hard, about how to proceed. When she turns to Dorothea, her gaze has darkened considerably. “Duchess Hresvelg is much more than she would initially appear. I'm positive you've noticed, hm?”

Dorothea says nothing, but she finds herself gripping at her knee so hard that her fingernails blanch. She’s not comfortable with where this conversation is going, much less feeling like she’s being backed into a corner.

When she sees Dorothea has no intention of speaking back, Rhea straightens and continues. “Perhaps it's better to be straightforward, child. As a member of the Church, it is my duty to be well-versed in all matters of Heaven and Hell. Our world can be quite a balancing act between the two.” The way she speaks is slow and calculated, almost as if she’s finding the right words to explain such concepts to a toddler. “I know that Duchess Hresvelg is not of our world. I would like your help in finding out just what exactly she is, and which side of that balance she is on.”

Dorothea is absolutely rigid now, and she finds herself at an absolute loss for words. It takes her a few moments to realize that she is really, truly afraid. Terrified, even.

Not for herself, but for Edelgard.

And so she laughs, and fakes her way through. “I'm afraid I must've gotten a concussion in that crash, madam. None of what you're saying is making any sense to me.”

Rhea smiles, the way that sends Dorothea's spine stiff, and her eyes seem to stare straight through her. “Forgive me, my dear. I only meant to check up on you for the time being, and here I am droning on about things far beyond that.” She stands and fixes her robes about her, apparently not one to look anything less than immaculate at any given moment. “Rest well, and if there is anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to let me know. Manuela can direct you to the chapel, if you wish.”

Dorothea nods after the priest as she makes her way back towards the door, but makes no move to see her out. She feels herself rooted in place, and with all the supernatural happenings as of late she’s not sure whether it’s her own fear that keeps her there or Rhea’s cold gaze as she goes. The priest seizes the door handle with one last glance over her shoulder. “I wish you the best, Dorothea Arnault. May the Goddess watch over you.”

The unspoken “you might just need it” hangs heavy in the air as Dorothea watches the door click shut.

* * *

Dorothea finds herself back in the entrance hall of the Hresvelg Estate not two days later, handkerchief clutched tightly between her fingers.

She’s nervous, _ again _, but this time she most certainly has reason to be. Beyond the flutter in her chest that rises when Edelgard von Hresvelg is in the room, she now finds herself in the midst of a conflict between “Heaven and Hell”, if Rhea’s words are to be believed. Those words and insinuations still echo in her ears, and the ride over has not been pleasant thinking on them.

It’s been about half an hour since a bland-looking doorman brought her inside, and the entire time her mind has been consumed with thought and worry. She struggles with telling Edelgard about Rhea, struggles with how much trust she has in a woman who quite literally bared fangs at her only days ago. 

She ultimately decides to keep quiet on the matter. Dorothea has no intention of helping an unnerving priest she’s never met before, nor does she feel the need to give Edelgard a reason to distance herself when the songstress is slowly, finally reaching the truth behind it all. She desperately needs to know more, if at the very least to know how to keep the Duchess safe and repay the debt Dorothea owes her.

The sound of footsteps meets her ears at last and Dorothea rises from her chair, looking expectantly down the hall for _ somebody _ she knows. At this point, she would take even seeing Count Vestra’s gaunt and ghoulish features over being alone with her thoughts for one second more. A flash of white tears into the room, and it takes a moment or two to realize that the woman that comes to a screeching halt before her is very much _ not _ Edelgard.

Their gazes lock together, and Dorothea wonders if things will just continue to get odder and odder at the Hresvelg Estate. Her eyes are devoid of any pigment whatsoever, pale pink irises staring back at Dorothea past colorless bangs that match the shade of Edelgard’s own. 

The young woman glances down at the cloth between Dorothea’s hands and does little to hide the crease of her brow and the wrinkle of her nose. “You have _ got _ to be kidding me.”

The Duchess in question finds her way into the hall only moments after, thumbing through a thick collection of papers as she walks towards the front door. “Lys, I wish you’d stay still for just a few moments. I’m trying to properly sort out—”

Edelgard’s words catch in her throat as she looks up, freezing in place when her eyes fall upon the newest guest. The Duchess is gorgeous, as usual, dressed in a silk robe that’s open enough to show what Dorothea thinks are scars marring the skin of her chest. Dorothea feels every part of herself tense in anticipation of how she will react.

The young stranger glances from Dorothea back at Edelgard, and the songstress swears she can hear the click of her tongue even from many feet away. “If you need me, El, I’ll be in the Market District.”

The sound of the door closing behind the woman is enough to finally break them out of their stupor. Edelgard subtly tugs at the edges of her robe, pulling them closer and closer across her chest and Dorothea averts her eyes respectfully. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Dorothea.”

“The feeling is mutual, Edelgard.” She stops herself from using the Duchess’s title, but only barely. Dorothea's honestly surprised at herself. Not once has she ever thought of Ferdinand as anything more than his first name, and formal address means little to her when it’s all just hollow words and crusty old bloodlines in the end. It occurs to her that there’s something more to this barrier between them, beyond the mystery that the Duchess has shrouded herself in.

As if confirming Dorothea’s suspicions, Edelgard stiffly nods, revealing little in her expression at first. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you'd ever come back here after our last conversation.”

Dorothea knows she’s caught the Duchess off guard. She grins, a bit awkward and she hates herself for it, but it’s the only way she can think of to put the smaller woman at ease. “And yet here I am.”

“And yet here you are,” Edelgard repeats, her mouth curling into the slightest hint of that smile that so often makes Dorothea forget what she’s doing. 

Dorothea pulls herself together as quick as she can, raising the cloth in her hand into Edelgard’s view. “I wanted to return the handkerchief you left me. I’m sorry if I interrupted you and your...” She pauses, thinks the better of making assumptions for fear of making an embarrassing mistake.

Edelgard fills in the gap a little frantically. “Friend. Lysithea is a dear friend of mine that’s visiting for the next month or so.”

“She must be quite a close friend, to refer the Grand Duchess of Enbarr as ‘El’,” the songstress notes.

Dorothea thinks she sees Edelgard blush a bit at the observation, but if she does the Duchess is quick to clear her throat and hide it. “It’s a family nickname. My father and my siblings used to call me ‘El’ for as long as I can remember.” Her gaze flickers down the hall at the paintings as she explains, and Dorothea wonders if there’s one that contains the people that Edelgard speaks of. 

Dorothea also wonders just how old said painting is by now.

The sigh that the Duchess heaves next is strikingly heavy. “These days, Lysithea is the closest thing to family I have left.” Sadness creeps into Edelgard’s tone, all too similar to their last conversation, and Dorothea finds her brow crease in concern at the sudden change. 

Dorothea pauses, fidgets with the fabric between her fingers. She hates to hear Edelgard so lonely, perhaps because she knows the feeling all too well. Though she knows she and the Duchess are two radically different people (perhaps two radically different beings, entirely), she can’t help the tightness she feels in her throat when she hears her speak on missing family. Some nights, even safe in her bed at the opera house, Dorothea can swear she feels an unmistakably similar sadness take hold of her.

If there’s one thing Dorothea can do, she can at least let Edelgard know she’s not going anywhere.

“About what you said the other day...” She sees Edelgard frown, and hurriedly gives a wave of her hand in reassurance. “I won’t pry, I promise. I just wanted to say...you talked about loneliness being a price that you pay. For certain things.” She pauses, gathers her resolve all at once and closes the space between them.

Dorothea is as gentle and careful as humanly possible as she takes Edelgard’s hand. It’s chilly to the touch, and her eyes fall on jagged scars and discolored patches of skin before she can even think not to stare. The Duchess says nothing, but Dorothea can feel the weight of that lavender gaze of hers as she places the handkerchief in her hand and clasps it between her own. She dares to meet that gaze before she takes the plunge, “I want you to know that it doesn’t have to be.”

Edelgard’s jaw goes rigid with tension and she’s suddenly more guarded than Dorothea’s ever seen her before. The songstress worries she’s said something wrong, worries her actions have already destroyed what little friendship they have.

And then, she realizes the tables have turned. It’s suddenly Edelgard looking at her like she’s the world’s biggest mystery in just showing that she’s not afraid. Showing that she cares for her, despite it all. It sends a pang of sympathy through the songstress’s chest.

Dorothea wishes she had the courage to embrace her right then and there, but it’s neither the time nor the place nor the situation. She can only step back to smile at the Duchess, and hope it offers the same relief.

If the way the Edeglard’s shoulders slowly but surely relax is any indication, Dorothea assumes it works. “Thank you, Dorothea,” she murmurs, and the way the mask she wears is crumbling is so much gentler than the songstress has ever seen before. As if also aware of this fact, Edelgard straightens, and corrects herself quickly. “For returning this to me. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Dorothea decides against pushing her luck on physical contact for one day, shifts their conversation to a lighter note. “Will you be attending Ferdinand’s ball?”

Edelgard’s brow raises in surprise, as if she was most certainly not expecting to broach such a topic. “I haven’t thought much on the matter,” she admits.

“You should. It would be delightful to have you there again, you know.”

The smile that Edelgard cracks looks a bit rueful, and she shakes her head despite Dorothea’s encouragement. “I doubt the nobles of Enbarr delight in me being in the same room as them.”

Dorothea shrugs it off, and ventures further. “Perhaps they don’t, but I do.”

Edelgard pauses, considering Dorothea’s words. “Then _ perhaps _I’ll think it over. If you’re planning on going, that is.” The Duchess’s smile is genuine once more as she delivers the line, and between the tips of fangs that show and the simultaneous radiance of the gesture, Dorothea’s heart trips over itself in her chest.

There’s so much to think on when it comes to Edelgard, even in the present moment alone. Despite it all, Dorothea’s finding it harder and harder to convince herself that it’s simple curiosity bringing her back to the Duchess’s doorstep. “Please do,” she replies, and in that moment an idea comes to mind that she would think much more fitting if alcohol was on her breath. Perhaps it’s the adrenaline this time, but she believes she’s finally brave enough to meet Edelgard’s lost handkerchief with a hook of her own.

And so, she takes another leap of faith. “I hope I’ll see you there, Edie.”

Dorothea tries not to think too much about the flush that rises to Edelgard’s face as she pulls the front door closed behind her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally on my much-needed holiday break, so here's the chapter I've been working on for a couple of weeks now! Hope you guys enjoy and thanks for all the wonderful comments you've left so far! I love seeing you guys get freaked out about Rhea, rest assured she's obviously here for perfectly pious reasons only.... 👀


	6. Chapter 6

“I absolutely, positively cannot believe you dragged me into this.”

“And yet you’re still here, aren’t you, Ingrid?” Dorothea shoots back with a grin, looping her arm into the smaller woman’s and starting towards the ballroom. Truth be told, she’s not too sure herself how she convinced the grumpy stable master to leave her post.

Ingrid cleans up well, enough to at least fit into the menagerie of guests that usually frequent Ferdinand’s parties. Dorothea’s quietly thankful for the camouflage; she’s always felt so out of place in such gatherings that it’s nice to just be on the arm of a partner instead of sticking out like a single sore thumb, for once.

Ferdinand meets them personally at the top of the stairs, intent on introducing himself before he in turn introduces the curious pair to his guests (and he _ had _ very much insisted that he still do so, much to Dorothea and Ingrid’s embarrassment). “Dorothea! Miss Galatea! You both look absolutely stunning.”

Dorothea can’t help but grin at his enthusiasm, even allowing him a brief hug when he moves for it. Though she now knows that the Duke himself is hardly human, she still finds it hard to deny his pleasantries. “Thanks, Ferdie. The ride over was smooth as ever, though someone had some complaints about how she could drive better.”

Ingrid wrinkles her nose at the snark, but Ferdinand’s quick to laugh it off as he turns to Dorothea's companion. “I try to hire skilled equestrians in my stables, but perhaps you could give me some advice on how to improve my staff, Stablemaster.” 

Ingrid hums noncommittally in response, and Dorothea begins to dread what she’ll be for the rest of the evening.

Ferdinand is as radiant as ever, perpetually unfazed. He turns to his friend, flashing that smile that the songstress now realizes is adjusted just enough to hide the teeth behind the expression. “Everyone has been talking of you lately, Dorothea. Half of the guests have asked me where the renowned Astrid is tonight!”

Dorothea bites her bottom lip, none too thrilled at the fact that the room is already brimming with anticipation. Not for her, of course, but for the lovely maiden of the stage. “I’m sure they have.”

Ferdinand takes his hand in hers, squeezes it once. “Well if those guests bore you, perhaps you will consider a dance or two with your biggest fan.”

Dorothea rolls her eyes at him, knowing he’s exaggerating because he hasn’t been to the opera to watch a performance in months. Before she can point out as much, though, the Duke is already half-way down the stairs in excitement.

“He’s quite a charmer,” Ingrid notes under her breath, but before Dorothea can counter the voice of the man himself booms across the ballroom.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming my close friend Miss Dorothea Arnault!”

Ingrid nudges her companion’s arm. “Close friend, now, is it?”

Dorothea nudges her right back. “Hush, we’ll miss your introduction”

“Accompanying her tonight is Lady Ingrid Brandl Galatea!”

Dorothea’s brow shoots up in surprise. “Since when did you have a mouthful of names and a fancy title?”

Ingrid’s back to frowning, now, teeth grinding together visibly as they start to descend the stairs. “I don’t. Anymore. Or I shouldn’t, at least.”

She delivers the words with such finality that Dorothea does not pry. Instead, she glances out across the ballroom, searching for that familiar flash of red and white. Her heartbeat quickens in her chest. Edelgard is here, somewhere. Dorothea has found that she’s grown quite accustomed to the feeling of that persistent gaze, that powerful curiosity when it’s turned her way. She feels it now especially, stronger than ever despite the fact that it's lost in the crowd of the night.

When they reach the bottom of the staircase, Ferdinand immediately takes Dorothea’s hand and plants a kiss on her knuckles. He smiles up at her, spins her underneath his arm to the beat of the sonata the musicians play, and when he catches her with his hand she’s staring at the the very woman she’s searching for in the center of the room.

Edelgard looks entirely different than the first time they were here, meeting each other in this very ballroom. Gone is her dress of red and gold, and gone are her skirts altogether. Instead, the Duchess is dressed sharper than any suitor in the room, Dorothea thinks. A black tailcoat and breeches hug her form as if they’ve been tailor-made, with the ever present gloves of the same shade. Her vest, layered over a collared white shirt, is black, as well, but if Dorothea strains she can see the floral patterns woven into it even from across the room. The cravat she wears is all that remains of the crimson color she seems to adore so much.

Dorothea gapes at the Duchess, and feels a bit less embarrassed when she realizes Ingrid is gaping with her.

“Oh, for the Goddess’s sake...” the stable master mutters under her breath, looking down at her own cobbled-together suit in comparison.

Dorothea thinks the better of giving her friend a sneering “I told you so” upon seeing her reaction. Instead, she chooses to torture Ingrid by dragging her closer to the duo.

The way Edelgard’s eyes light up when she sees Dorothea just isn’t fair. Dorothea can still remember a time only weeks ago when that gaze sent her rigid with its eerie glow, and the fact that it now makes her head swim without any supernatural assistance is just frustrating. 

“Good evening, Dorothea.” Edelgard is quick to use her name, and the songstress’s own heart is quick to react to hearing it on her lips in public.

“I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to see you here,” Dorothea breathes, and for a moment she finds herself so caught up in Edelgard that the room around her seems irrelevant. When her eye catches the looming figure before her, though, she’s quick to adjust. “It’s a pleasure to see you as well, Count Vestra.”

“Likewise,” the Count answers curtly.

Dorothea can’t quite tell if his shortness is malicious or simply due to him being a man of few words, but she’s saved from having to guess by Edelgard's quick interruption. “Who has the honor of escorting you tonight?”

Ingrid looks like she’s about to bolt, so Dorothea makes sure to keep attached to her at the hip. “This is Ingrid Brandl Galatea, my friend and coworker at Mittelfrank.” 

Edelgard’s eyes scan Ingrid up and down, and Dorothea knows exactly how she’s feeling when her friend stiffens on her arm. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Galatea.”

“Of course,” is all Ingrid offers in response, and Dorothea gives her a light kick in the ankle for it.

Ferdinand none too subtle about the way he then pushes between the pair, looping his arm in Dorothea’s own and clapping a hand on Ingrid’s shoulder all at once. “Miss Galatea has quite the life story to tell. I am sure she would love to share with the two of you while Dorothea and I dance.”

“While we dance?” Dorothea asks, puzzled.

Edelgard steps forward, eyes flickering from Dorothea to her friend as she desperately tries to interject. “Ferdinand, I was actually going to—”

“Ah, this waltz is my favorite! Come, Dorothea!” The Duke acts as if he’s not heard a word that’s been said, seizing Dorothea by the arm to haul her away from an amused Count Vestra, a frustrated Edelgard, and a terrified Ingrid.

* * *

Ferdinand only bothers to reveal his true motivations when they’re halfway through the band’s tune and on the other side of the room. “Hubert tells me that you have been prying further at our little secret.”

Dorothea can’t help but frown. Though there’s no harm in Ferdinand knowing, she finds it a bit unsettling that everything she does seems to be shared between the three nobles. “In my defense, I gave you the opportunity to be the first to crack.”

“If you think you need to defend yourself against me, you are quite mistaken, Dorothea.” Ferdinand sneaks a look over his shoulder, as if he’s not quite sure that his friends are out of earshot yet. “I have known Edelgard and Hubert for quite a while. It is about time they ventured further than the borders of the estate every day and lived fuller lives, especially our dear Duchess.”

Dorothea cocks a brow at his curious statement, tilts her head to the side. “So after all that I’ve learned and seen over the past few weeks, you’d suggest I take Edie out on a lighthearted picnic?”

“Edie?” Ferdinand blinks, and for once in his life he looks genuinely astonished. But his surprise gives way to amusement all too quickly. “Oh, no _ wonder _ Hubert is so irate. I thought he had just jumped to conclusions about the two of you, but _ nicknames _? Miss Arnault!”

Dorothea is neither subtle nor accidental about the way she grinds her heel into his instep. Ferdinand stumbles, but his laughter is unaffected as they continue their awkward little waltz. “Is everything I do free reign for you and the Count to gossip about?” 

Ferdinand shrugs. “You would be surprised how much Hubert can gossip when he is not focused on looking so sinister.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Ferdinand takes the insult in stride, both in conversation and in the way he spins them in a circle to skillfully avoid some of the more drunk dancers on the floor. “To answer your earlier question, I think Edelgard would benefit greatly from any change of scenery you could provide. Though I must admit she is terribly efficient at it, doing paperwork all day does not suit her.” Ferdinand’s eyes light up, and suddenly he’s no longer looking at Dorothea but instead over her shoulder. “It seems like you suit her quite well, though.”

And there it is, the hair standing up at the back of her neck and the chill running up her spine. Dorothea turns to glance over her shoulder and is met with the sight of Edelgard, standing with gloved hands clasped together in what the songstress thinks might just be a nervous stance. When their gazes meet, though, the Duchess straightens, chin tilted up and confident as ever.

“May I cut in?”

Ferdinand looks like he’s just doubled his family’s entire fortune. He beams at Edelgard, nodding enthusiastically as he steps away to offer up his partner to her care. “Of course! As if I would keep Miss Arnault from her biggest fan.”

_Ah. Biggest fan_. Dorothea feels heat rise to her face when she realizes how she missed the subject of his implication before, though she can’t deny there’s quite some truth to his words. She doesn’t feel quite as bad for the way she blushes when she sees the red tint on the Duchess’s cheeks, as well. 

Ferdinand’s not content to leave without boasting, though. He straightens his jacket as he turns back to face the duo, standing a little bit taller now that the Duchess is in their midst. “I am a far better dancer than Edelgard could ever hope to be, but I am sure she can at least entertain you in my absence.”

Dorothea can’t help but laugh when she sees Edelgard’s brow furrow in frustration at the jab. She steps closer to her at once, daring to lay a hand across her shoulder. “Thanks for leaving me in good hands, Ferdie.”

The host grins and nods in approval at his friends, only taking a moment or two to look them over and admire his handiwork before he slips back into the crowd. Ingrid and Hubert are most definitely in danger now, Dorothea thinks with a chuckle as she comes face to face with her new partner.

“I’m truly not the best dancer,” Edelgard admits, but unlike her uncertain words her hands have already found their place across Dorothea’s waist and between her fingers.

Dorothea tilts her head down, offering such a smile that her cheeks hurt. “Perhaps we’ll both learn something tonight, then.”

* * *

Edelgard and Dorothea dance together at least three times more before they find themselves on Ferdinand’s balcony. They’re close, perhaps too much so for gossip’s sake but Dorothea can’t find it in herself to care. She sits on the railing, legs crossed daintily before her with Edelgard’s arm pressed to her thigh.

The Duchess had suggested an escape to fresh air ten minutes ago, but Dorothea hasn’t been able to find her breath since. It’s cold and snowy, she tells herself, enough to leave her shivering without the cloak she left at the front door. That's the only reason why, of course.

“You’re shaking.” The Duchess is quick to interrupt their prior conversation, something on the party’s music selection that had fallen from Dorothea’s focus since the chill began to set in to her bones.

“Very perceptive of you, Edie.” Dorothea chuckles nervously, trying not to think too much on how closely Edelgard watched her in order to notice the tremble of her hands. “It’s gotten quite cold. Should’ve thought to bring my cloak or gloves, I suppose.”

“Would you like mine?” Before Dorothea even has a chance to respond, Edelgard has her gloves peeled off and held out to her friend.

“I couldn’t possibly,” Dorothea says with a shake of her head. She moves her hands to Edelgard’s, pushes them away gently and the feeling of the Duchess’s frigid skin on her own is still new, still nerve-wracking. “Put those back on, before you freeze to death, yourself.”

Now, it’s Edelgard’s turn to shake her head. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m really not that cold at the moment.”

“I don’t see how you’re not, with all that snow in your hair.” 

Edelgard laughs—she _ giggles _ —and oh, how wonderful it sounds. “I’m surprised you can tell it’s there, given the color. Very perceptive of _ you_, Miss Arnault.” 

Dorothea can’t help but beam back at the tease. The songstress dares to leans closer, a single hand hovering just above Edelgard’s forehead. When a nod is given in return, she carefully brushes the snow from the Duchess’s hair, touch lingering a bit longer than necessary with each delicate stroke.

They stay like that for a moment, hovering on the edge of something neither of them knows how to step back from or leap over. The sound of someone clearing their throat is what finally sends the two skittering apart.

Ingrid stands in the doorway, looking quite uncomfortable both from the tightness of her formal wear and the situation she’s found herself interrupting. But she approaches anyways, seemingly focused on Dorothea for the time being. “We should say our goodbyes,” she says, short and to the point, “The last of Duke Aegir’s escorts is leaving soon.”

Disappointment sets in quickly. Dorothea tries her hardest not to pout, but she’s sure her friend can see the frown that pulls at the edges of her lips. “I’m sure I could convince Ferdinand to spare a carriage to take us both home later,” she offers instead.

Ingrid sighs and shakes her head. “I have to check up on the new foal. I’d like to make it back as soon as possible to make sure he’s alright in this weather.”

Edelgard clears her throat softly, stepping to Dorothea’s side once more despite the warning glare that Ingrid shoots her way. “Hubert and I can take you back to Mittelfrank at the end of the night. It would be no trouble at all for us to make a detour on our way back to the estate”

“Are you sure?” Dorothea glances down at her, perplexed that the woman who’s been skirting the edges of her grasp for so long is now the one offering her something as personal as a carriage ride. 

The sincerity in Edelgard’s expression is almost overwhelming when she replies, “Absolutely.”

Dorothea can’t deny that such a thought makes her heart flip and flutter in her chest. Though the Count being present is certain to put her on edge, the thought of getting to spend more time with Edelgard, far away from prying eyes, is all too tempting. “I’ll be fine, Ingrid. Go on ahead.”

Ingrid looks stiff as she makes her way over to her friend, and she pulls Dorothea into a tight embrace. “Be careful, you. You’re going to give me a heart attack if you have any more close calls.”

“I’ll wake you as soon as I get back so you know I’ve made it home safe,” Dorothea murmurs back.

“You better.” When Ingrid pulls away, her eyes are locked on Edelgard. The Duchess gives the smallest of nods, as if to offer reassurance, but Ingrid offers no leniency as she pulls her jacket back over her shoulders and makes her way back inside to bid their good host farewell. 

Dorothea watches her friend go and makes sure her scrutinizing gaze is out of sight before she turns back to the Duchess. “Should we make our way back inside?”

Edelgard shakes her head, laying her bare hand across Dorothea’s and suddenly the songstress doesn’t feel quite so cold, anymore. “Let’s stay. Just a little longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! Back again, this time with a double update! Next chapter will be up very, very shortly


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note that the second part of this chapter contains some canon-typical violence and gore

Dorothea is amazed how much Edelgard can talk with the right prompts. A woman who’s been the enigma of a lifetime is suddenly bursting at the seams with words. Talk of political opinions and the science of recent weather changes and everything in between spills from the Duchess’s lips.

Oh, but Dorothea adores the way she talks of the opera the most. Being in Enbarr for half a year has afforded the songstress many opportunities to be courted and preened over by all sorts of nobles and socialites. When they fail to catch her attention, they always turn to talk of her performances.

They’re all the same, making shallow observations of a keenly placed joke or a nod to an old myth. They talk of what they see from their grand boxes in the back of the opera house, so far removed from it all and drunk on wine and good company. She finds it tiring, if not insulting, to hear their vapid reads.

But Edelgard is anything but shallow.

Edelgard looks deeper, finds meanings and mannerisms that Dorothea herself only notices because she remembers them being dictated in rehearsal. She sees the smallest touches, the tiniest details of it all. Her analysis of the story lines is riveting, and her reviews of the music and singing almost make Dorothea blush with pride.

She’s enamored with her, and more than a few times Dorothea catches herself staring as the Duchess speaks. More than a few times that stare lingers in places it shouldn’t: at the skin of Edelgard’s neck when she loosens her cravat, at the way one of her canines catches her bottom lip when she’s thinking of an answer, at the gaze she sometimes even finds lingering in return.

They make their way to the carriage quite late, when many guests have already disappeared from the ballroom. As they climb inside with the help of the driver, Dorothea can’t help but notice a heavy presence missing from the mix.

“Where’s Hubert?” she asks, finally daring to use the Count’s first name once they’ve properly settled in the carriage.

Edelgard seems to relax even further into her seat across from the songstress, discarding her cravat entirely and working to slip her jacket from her shoulders next. “Staying the night with Ferdinand.” When she catches Dorothea’s raised brow in confusion, she gives a shrug and explains further, “Their relationship is quite the odd one, but it seems seeing each other in formal wear most certainly, ah..._affects _ them, in a way.”

_ I know the sentiment well, _ Dorothea thinks, though doesn’t dare voice such a quip aloud.

The vest is the last item to be discarded, and Edelgard makes a neat pile of clothes at her side before leaning back against the seat and letting her eyes drift shut. The driver’s moving them along quickly now, and with nothing but the rumble of wheels against cobblestone between them Dorothea can’t help but stare a bit more.

This is the most relaxed she’s ever seen the Duchess, Dorothea thinks. She’s down to nothing but her shirt, breeches, and gloves and still somehow looks absolutely stunning. There’s something tantalizing about the way she lounges, hands unceremoniously shoved in her pockets now that noble eyes are no longer looking and head tilted back to reveal every rise and fall of her chest. Dorothea feels foolish for the improper thoughts that come next, and does her best to cool off and look elsewhere for a moment or two. 

She brings her gaze back to Edelgard’s face, and a shiver runs through her when she finds those lavender eyes staring right back at her. Edelgard's expression betrays nothing but the slightest hint of a frown. “You’ve been staring at me through about half the night, it seems.”

Dorothea laughs, and it comes out so much more high-pitched and nervous than she would have liked. “You’ve noticed?”

“Only because it worries me,” Edelgard murmurs, and now that stony look is softening quite quickly. “Have I done something to offend you?”

“Absolutely not!” Dorothea’s so quick to blurt out the words that the Duchess startles at the noise. “You’ve just, ah, given me a lot to think on tonight.”

“I see,” she says, but it’s apparent she understands little of what such a thing means as she leans forward and shifts further of that searing focus onto Dorothea. “What might you be thinking on now, pray tell?”

“I just…” The songstress shifts, cursing herself for once again tripping over her feelings. One who can fool hundreds of men with honeyed words but falls apart under the attention of a single woman makes for a sorry actress, she thinks. “I enjoy your company very much, Edie.”

“Is that so?” There’s that rueful smile again, now caught somewhere between delight and disbelief at the notion. “Reassuring to know that someone in this city does.”

“Whoever doesn’t is a damned fool.” Dorothea’s quick to give the response, frustration burning in her that anyone would think otherwise. “You’ve been unbelievably kind to me. You’ve saved my very life, even. You’re smart, and interesting, and brave, and you’re—” She pauses, and what she wants to say catches in her throat. “You’re—”

And here again, Dorothea finds herself staring. Unabashedly so, this time around. 

“You’re quite beautiful,” she murmurs at last, and Dorothea wishes she could say it’s the wine talking but she knows she’s only had one or two cups tonight. There’s no alcohol or adrenaline to excuse what she feels this time, and judging by the glimmer rising in the lavender gaze that stares back at her, Edelgard has suddenly realized the same.

Dorothea leans in close, reaching to carefully tuck a strand of hair that’s come loose from Edelgard’s ponytail back behind her ear. The songstress is almost shocked to see her jump at the touch, but before she can doubt her actions she hears a nervous chuckle rumble in Edelgard’s throat.

“Such praise sounds better suited for yourself, Thea,” she says softly, and Dorothea’s cheeks run hot at the nickname. The songstress has been matched at her own game, it seems. She can't say she's all that disappointed about it.

They’re so close their foreheads brush together, but Edelgard doesn’t startle anymore. Instead, she draws in a breath, long and slow. Her eyes flutter for a moment, nose wrinkling as if something is amiss, but she does her best to steel herself. Those lilac irises come to bore into Dorothea’s own once more.

“Dorothea, may I…” Edelgard pauses, uncertain. She brings her hand to the songstress’s cheek and the cool press of leather against her skin makes Dorothea shiver. Edelgard swallows nervously before she tries her request again. “May I kiss you?”

“Please,” Dorothea breathes, but both of them linger a moment longer. Edelgard almost seems content just to stare, drinking in every bit of her features now that they’re closer than ever before. She shifts her gloved hand to the line of Dorothea’s jaw before closing the space between them at last.

Their lips meet so tenderly that Dorothea’s convinced she’s dreaming. There’s no way that she’s here, being kissed by a woman that’s been so far out of her reach in more ways than one.

And yet the insistent press of Edelgard’s mouth against her own reminds her that it’s all very much _ real_. Dorothea sighs softly at the relief of it all, parts the Duchess’s lips with her tongue and Edelgard is so very quick to respond in kind. She brushes against pointed canines, but the fear of all the unknown surrounding Edelgard von Hresvelg is absent in the wake of her breath on Dorothea’s own.

Dorothea curls her hands into the Duchess’s dress shirt, two fingers slipping in between buttons and running over rough and scarred skin there. She hardly knows what she’s doing, where she’s going with it all, but she’s very much aware of the thrill that runs through her with each subtle movement that closes the space between them.

And then, Edelgard jerks away.

Apologies are already pouring from Dorothea’s lips. She retreats to the corner of her seat in a hurry, babbling and feeling like a fool for whatever she’s done wrong. Edelgard shushes her harshly, and when Dorothea pauses long enough to actually take a proper look at the Duchess she finds her expression has darkened.

Something is distinctly different in the woman before her, something primal. Edelgard's eyes flick from side to side nervously, and she moves over to the window with careful and measured motions. Her nose wrinkles once more, and a guttural noise rumbles throughout the carriage.

Pinpricks run across the back of Dorothea's neck when she realizes the awful sound coming from the Duchess herself.

Edelgard stares intently at the door, brow furrowing in concentration as she moves closer and opens it just a crack to look outside. But neither of them has enough time to react to the hand that bursts into the carriage and seizes Edelgard by the throat.

Dorothea yells in alarm as a shadowy figure wrenches Edelgard out and sends her tumbling into the snow. She doesn’t think twice about following her, realizing too late how unfortunate a mistake it is when a masked man takes a fistful of her hair and yanks her to his chest.

Edelgard’s on her feet in a flash, only to face another man in similar attire with a pistol pointed at her head. She freezes in place at the barrel that presses against her skull, eyes frantically darting back and forth between Dorothea and her own assailant.

The man runs his thumb across the hammer of his pistol, smug even underneath his mask. “I’d give you a chance to pray, but I doubt it’ll be very useful where you’re going.”

Dorothea glances around as best as she can, searching for any signs of help. She can see a bloodied form hanging over the driver’s seat out of the corner of her eye, and she knows at once he is dead and they are alone. Fear makes her stiff only for a moment before she lets out the loudest shriek she can muster. Somebody, _ anybody _ must be close enough to hear.

The attacker facing Edelgard winces at the sound, but never once takes his eyes off of the Duchess. “Shut her up, quick!”

A gloved hand closes around Dorothea’s throat, and panic grips her. She flails in the man’s grasp, but he quickly flips their positions and knocks her head against the carriage. Another hand tightens his grip and he’s squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. All Dorothea can do is choke and gasp and wheeze...

...and watch the bizarre scene that plays out over his shoulder.

Something in Edelgard’s posture visibly snaps, but the second she moves the man before her doesn’t hesitate in firing. The bullet cracks and bounces off the tiles at his feet, because the woman before him is already gone. Edelgard reappears at his side to seize his arm with an audible crack, and the main cries out in pain as his gun skitters away in the snow. The Duchess is practically a blur as she tosses him against the ground and rushes to the second man’s side.

The pressure on Dorothea’s throat disappears next, and she collapses. Blood is roaring in her ears and she gasps in as much air as possible, barely registering the scuffle of feet and shouts before her. She hauls herself to her feet in slow and shaky movements.

The man’s scream cuts through the air, and Dorothea wrenches her gaze from the ground below. For the second time tonight, Edelgard looks far different than Dorothea has ever seen her before. This time, it is not for the better.

In the time it’s taken for Dorothea to steady herself, Edelgard has managed to pin their assailant to the wall by his very neck. Where her skin was once pale, it is now almost ashen, and her fingernails dig into the man’s throat so much that one could venture to call them talons—no, _ claws_. She bares her teeth at him like an animal, and the pointed canines there have become incisors so large that they curl past her bottom lip. Her eyes illuminate the space between them, glowing lilac against black sclerae in the dark just as Dorothea had seen them after the accident.

Ingrid’s voice replays in her mind in that moment. _ They say she’s a monster_.

Edelgard’s fingers tighten and tighten around the man’s throat, and it’s not long before he’s thrashing in her grip just as Dorothea had done in his own. Blood runs over her hands and down the man’s clothing from where claws pierce his skin. Just when it seems as if he’ll lose consciousness, Edelgard loosens her hold on him. Her other hand comes to his chest, pressing down directly over his heart as a threat.

The moment she lets up, though, he uses his newfound breath to laugh. “Kill me...it doesn’t matter...your kind isn’t safe here anymore. This is our home.”

“Who sent you?” Edelgard says, and when she speaks her voice is nothing like Dorothea has ever heard before. It’s a boom that cuts through the air, ringing not just in her ears but in her very skull. 

The grin that crosses the man’s face is terrifying, blood dribbling down his chin as he chokes out more threats. “Ordelia...will die next—”

Edelgard snaps his neck without even flinching.

A heavy blow to the back sends Dorothea tumbling to the ground once more, and stars dance before her eyes as the wind is knocked from her lungs by the cobblestone beneath her. The man she previously thought incapacitated dashes across her vision, broken arm hanging limp by his side but now wielding a weapon in his free hand. He charges at Edelgard, and Dorothea feels terror grip her chest.

Dorothea tries, desperately, to fill her lungs with air once more and cry out in warning. She can only watch as the man drives his glimmering silver knife directly Edelgard’s abdomen.

The sound that the Duchess makes is all too human, a strangled yell as she crumples around the weapon and the weight of her attacker’s body slamming into her. They tumble to the ground in a mess of bloodied limbs, and when Dorothea is finally able to pull herself to her knees she can barely distinguish one from the other.

Dorothea’s been here before, she thinks as she scrambles around for something to use. Not in this situation exactly, but one far too much like it. She struggles to think what she did that day, struggles to remember how her younger self fended off a drunken man determined to see her underneath him.

In the whirlwind of thoughts that fly through her head, she almost misses the pistol in the snow.

Dorothea has never been one for firearms, and with the way that Edelgard and the man are tangled in each other she doesn’t trust herself to shoot. Her fingers run over the stock of the gun. Her mind flashes back to the night with the drunken man.

Dorothea remembers. She lunges. She strikes.

The butt of the pistol sinks deep into the man’s temple and he goes utterly limp at once. Dorothea wastes no time in hauling him off of Edelgard, and even after all that’s happened the danger of approaching her barely registers as she crawls to the Duchess’s side.

The relief of seeing Edelgard as a human again is fleeting, because Dorothea quickly realizes it is because her wound isn’t healing. The veins around the knife embedded in her skin have turned utterly black, curling around her abdomen like wicked tendrils taking hold. Even the rise and fall of her chest has Edelgard wincing, _ whimpering_, even.

“Edie? Edelgard!” The Duchess’s name does little to rouse her, and Dorothea chews at her lower lip anxiously as she examines the wound. It seems to worsen with each passing moment, wrapping further and further across Edelgard's skin. The songstress is on the verge of a panic.

Dorothea slows down long enough to see that they are in the Market District, quite far from the Hresvelg Estate. Ferdinand’s estate is further still, and she finds her options for medical assistance steadily waning. If Hubert, Ferdinand, and Lysithea are out of the question…

Dorothea knows bringing Edelgard to Mittelfrank is exceptionally risky. If one wrong person sees, she could endanger not just the Duchess’s identity but her very life itself. Rhea suddenly becomes a much more pressing problem than she had initially thought.

But Edelgard has saved her life once already, and Dorothea will do anything to return the favor now.

The songstress leans down to slide her arm under Edelgard’s own, careful to avoid the injury as she pulls her close under her cloak. Edelgard groans, hissing curses under her breath as her eyes flutter shut and open over and over again. She stumbles as she walks and it’s apparent she’s drifting in and out of consciousness, but Dorothea makes sure to hold her steady as they begin their trudge through the snow.

Dorothea thinks Ingrid might finally get to have that heart attack she was talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bc having your first kiss without an accompanying bloodbath is for losers
> 
> Thanks again for all the support so far! I know I said I was excited to share the last two chapters with you, but I do have to say that the upcoming one is my favorite by far...stay tuned...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bet you'd thought you'd seen the last of me, huh?

Ingrid’s room being next to the stables is very likely meant to be for convenience’s sake. She’s an avid caretaker of her charges, and her day begins and ends with Mittelfrank’s mounts. This often proves convenient for Dorothea, as well. There’s been many a time when she’s had to help a drunken Madame Casagrandra up two flights of stairs, and Ingrid’s room is always the first stop on the journey.

Ingrid always, always helps, however much she moans and grumbles about it. For as much grief as she gives Dorothea, the job is nothing if not consistent and she finds it so, so hard to refuse her friend.

This time, though, the circumstances are...a bit different. Ingrid opens her door at midnight to two women covered in blood.

The stablemaster nearly jumps out of her skin when the sight finally registers in her mind. “Dorothea, what in the absolute f—”

“Ingrid, I promise I will never ask you to go to any balls ever again for as long as we know each other,” Dorothea cuts in, teeth still chattering from the long trek through the snow, “Just help me get her to my room.”

* * *

Edelgard doesn’t stir the entire night, and Dorothea never leaves her side. It’s still dark outside when the songstress finally feels the hand she clasps in her own twitch and curl ever so slightly. Dorothea has spent the night in stupor, not quite awake but much too on edge to fall back asleep, and the action rouses her instantly.

Edelgard’s eyes flutter open at last, and Dorothea is relieved to see the fog of both fury and injury cleared from them once more. They’re just that shade of lavender that she’s grown to love, and in an instant they’re turned to lock on her. Dorothea offers a smile despite how weary she feels.

“You’re alright?” the Duchess slurs, her voice barely a whisper. It’s unlike her to sound so frail, so weak, but anything is preferable to the terrifying tone that tore from her throat the night before.

“I am.” Dorothea nods, giving her fingers the gentlest squeeze before bringing the back of Edelgard’s hand to her own cheek as solid proof of her words. “All in one piece. Just a few scrapes and bruises, I promise.”

“Good,” Edelgard murmurs. Perhaps she can't quite smile yet, but the slightest crinkle at the corner of her eyes speaks volumes for someone like her. When Dorothea’s safety is settled, the Duchess then moves to scanning the room around her. It’s evident her consciousness is coming back in waves, especially when her strength fails her and she lets her head fall back into the pillow. “Where am I?”

“I brought you back to Mittelfrank.” When Edelgard glances up, alarmed, Dorothea’s quick to reassure her. “Only Ingrid knows that you’re here. She insisted on keeping watch outside the room all night.”

“Does Hubert know you took me?” 

“No. We’ve been too focused on your wounds to find him.” Dorothea only notices that their hands are still intertwined when the Duchess’s fingers close in concern, and she tries her hardest not to dwell too long on the matter.

“Unfortunately they won’t be healed so easily,” Edelgard murmurs, suddenly remembering her own position and drawing her arm to her chest as she rises to sit. She winces at once, grabbing at her side where bandages cover the ugly laceration. “Removing the knife was skillful of you. I’m afraid I’d be dead hours ago if you all hadn’t.”

Dorothea gives a huff of relief at the compliment. There’s no time to preen, but she resolves to remember to remember it later, as she does all the Duchess’s praises. “I’ve picked up more than just singing from Madame Casagranda, thank the Goddess for that.”

“Indeed,” Edelgard gives the softest chuckle of her own, but it fades to a grimace so quickly it’s frightening.

Dorothea had thought that the Duchess’s “immortality” was all-inclusive, but now she’s inclined to believe otherwise considering the way she’s watched Edelgard’s body change overnight. The black in her veins has spread to her head in the hours they’ve slept, traveling up the expanse of her neck and sweeping across her left cheek. She looks pale, not in the ashen way of her more powerful form but instead a much more sickly hue. Dorothea dares to draw closer, her gaze laced with concern as she asks, “What’s happening to you?”

Edelgard holds out a single hand in front of her, flipping it back and forth and scowling at the black streaks she finds there. “Silver poisoning. Acute.” She’s murmuring under her breath now, as if planning it all out before she even bothers to try and walk. “If I can find Hubert, he can get me what I need to fix this. He must be scouring the city at this point.”

She’s already swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and Dorothea debates the consequences of trying to stop her. Edelgard looks far more broken than she ever has, only a loose nightshirt covering the swath of bandages they had used to try and stop the spread. Dorothea’s convinced she won’t be able to find Hubert in time, and she’s growing more and more convinced that there’s something more to the Duchess than everything she already knows. “There’s another price you have to pay for being immortal, isn’t there?”

Edelgard says nothing and goes still, her eyes now locked on her bandaged abdomen.

“What is it?” Dorothea prods.

The line of Edelgard’s jaw goes rigid. “Nothing that you should worry yourself over.”

Dorothea has heard of beings, called demons and ghouls and leeches and everything in between, who live by devouring humans. As a child, they were tales her mother told her to keep her from wandering out too late at night. As a teen, they were stupid myths disregarded by a girl who had spent years without the safety of a roof over her head.

Now, the tales are right in front of her.  Dorothea puts it all together: the fangs, the immortality, Rhea’s warnings, the silver. It all leads to one conclusion: “You need blood.”

Edelgard furrows her brow and closes her eyes, trying her best to steady the way her breathing noticeably quickens at the very idea. “I do.” The answer is short, sharp, and meant to close the curtain on any suggestion that may follow.

Dorothea suggests it, anyway. “Take mine, then.”

“No!” Edelgard snaps, and for a moment Dorothea thinks she can hear the Duchess’s voice rumble through her head just as it had in the alleyway. Edelgard herself winces at the power she lets leak through, hand clutching where her skin has blackened even beyond the bandage on her stomach. “I can’t,” she insists. “I won’t,” she corrects, softer. “Not you.”

Dorothea sucks in a deep breath, continuing despite the way her hands tighten in frustration at Edelgard's stubbornness. “Hubert may be scouring the city, but there’s no telling when he’ll find you. He may not be quick enough.”

“He’ll find me,” Edelgard says in the most unconvincing murmur. “I can hold out until then.” She leans forward as she speaks, planting her feet on the floor beneath her and starting to rise.

“Take my blood,” Dorothea urges again, and this time she’s brave enough to find her hands clenching at the Duchess’s knees to keep her in place.

“Dorothea,” she warns, and there’s a rumble in her tone that certainly doesn’t sound like Edelgard. The Duchess shakes her head as if to clear it, brushes her companions hands to the side and tries to stand again through a grimace.

Dorothea's desperation reaches its peak, and she takes the plunge with no regret. “Dammit, you  _ idiot _ !” she snaps, biting down on the scab across her lip as hard as she can. The skin that was so close to finally healing cracks open once more, and she winces at the sting of the renewed laceration. Her resolve remains unshaken.

The Grand Duchess Hresvelg means something to her, she decides in that moment. They’re much too far along to pretend otherwise, after the touches and words and near-death experiences they’ve shared. Dorothea refuses to let her die before she can figure out exactly what those lavender eyes hold in store. She takes both sides of Edelgard’s face in her hands and promptly pulls the Duchess’s lips to her own.

Edelgard goes rigid against her, still as a statue for a single heartbeat. Two. Three. A growl rumbles deep in her throat, at last. Her hand finds its way to the front of Dorothea’s dress, but despite it all she does not pull away. Instead, she leans into this kiss, sharpened teeth scraping at the wound and making Dorothea hiss in pain.

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” Dorothea whispers against her when she feels the Duchess go still in alarm. Edelgard pauses, struggles with herself, breathes out in a huff but pushes ever further to run her tongue across Dorothea’s lips.

Her jerky motions speak of a struggle against instinct as she seizes the edge of Dorothea’s already-bloodied dress from the night before and pulls it down over her shoulder. Dorothea finds herself so light-headed, so distracted by the strange intimacy of it all, that feeling teeth prick at her neck makes her jump in alarm.

Edelgard pauses there, mouth at the point where Dorothea’s pulse pounds loudest. “Your heartbeat,” she murmurs, and Dorothea’s heart stutters in response like Edelgard’s got it right in her jaws. “Are you afraid of me?”

“I’m not,” Dorothea decides in a single breath, and she doesn’t think twice on the matter.

Edelgard moves to press her lips against Dorothea’s sternum, and her breath comes in hot and ragged gasps of self-restraint against the songstress’s skin. She traces the line of Dorothea’s collarbone with her mouth and the taller woman shivers.  Dorothea can swear she hears an apology whispered there, but she doesn’t have time to think on it much before pain blossoms in her breast. Dorothea gasps despite herself, her fingers curling in Edelgard’s nightshirt as the feeling radiates across her entire chest. Her cheek meets the top of the Duchess’s head as her lips part briefly in a wordless cry, choked back only by the thought of Ingrid hearing and bursting in to rescue her.

They don’t need interruptions, both to keep the secrecy of Edelgard’s otherworldly identity and other reasons that Dorothea is slowly starting to identify through the pinpricks that run across her skin. There’s something about this that feels...much too pleasing.  The taste of copper bleeds into Dorothea’s mouth, but her teeth meet her bottom lip anyways at the tingling that curls right to her core. Her every nerve sears as if on fire, and it’s a type of feeling that hovers a dangerous line between an awful ache and an all-too tempting thrill.

When the feeling recedes and she finds her head fogged over that line between pain and pleasure, she barely registers the feeling of blood trickling from her new wound. Edelgard’s tongue is dragging against her skin, and with it comes both a relief and a fire deep in her core. Dorothea’s much too tired to act on the matter, her breath drawing longer and longer as she feels her limbs become like lead.

Dorothea’s mind is nothing but a daze and she’s not even sure how much time has passed before she’s the one slumped against the Duchess. She can’t even find it in her to be embarrassed that they’ve ended up pressing their foreheads together, both winded in their own distinct ways. The whirlwind of emotion she’s felt for Edelgard in the past few hours alone seems to trump any bashfulness Dorothea has left.

“I’m sorry,” Edelgard says, at last. A hesitant hand slides against Dorothea’s side to keep her steady.

“Don’t be,” Dorothea murmurs, rubbing her thumb across the smaller woman’s cheek where the blackened vessels are now slowly but surely receding. “You saved my life. I’m returning the favor.”

Edelgard pulls back with a scoff, and she’s silent for a moment or two as her eyes trail up and down Dorothea’s disheveled self. The pause hangs in the air before she finally decides, “Seems like having you by my side is a favor in itself.”

Dorothea finds it in her to laugh, heart light despite it all at the brazen compliment. “You flatter me, Edie.”

Edelgard smiles then, a tiny little thing at the corner of a bloodied mouth but an improvement nonetheless. “I’m trying, Thea.”

Dorothea feels herself run warm at the nicknames, and she even draws the courage to try and stand up. Dizziness strikes immediately, and Dorothea groans at the headache that follows before she stumbles forward and the room begins to spin. It’s a fraction of a second before she finds Edelgard on her feet and at her side, an arm secured tightly around her waist.

“You’ll probably want to rest for a while,” the Duchess murmurs, bearing Dorothea’s weight effortlessly as if she wasn’t the one on death’s doorstep only moments ago. She walks her back to the bed and helps lay the songstress down in painstakingly careful motions, like she’s dealing with glass. Edelgard pauses with a knee on the edge of the bed, and the mask that draws over her expression is one that Dorothea now knows well enough to recognize as a struggle over what to do next.

“Are you leaving?” When guilt shows itself on Edelgard’s face, Dorothea goes for a lighter tone. “I just might cry if you do, be warned.”

She gets a bit of a chuckle, at that. “Would you prefer that I stay?”

“Of course I would, Edelgard.”

The brief flash of surprise that crosses her eyes at the words almost breaks Dorothea’s heart. Edelgard pauses to mull over things, a hand at her own bandaged side reminding her of the danger that’s landed them in this situation. She wipes at her mouth with the back of her sleeve to buy time, and all the while her eyes are trained on her feet like she’s frustrated by what she’s feeling. Finally, she relents and slides into the tiny bed.

The Duchess is chilly to the touch, Dorothea thinks. Nothing like the walking corpses of the legends so many people tell, but just enough to remind Dorothea that her blood runs cold. She stiffens a bit against her, feeling a pang of regret at the way Edelgard begins to recoil. Dorothea turns to face her, offering a smile of reassurance and sliding closer, instead.

The Duchess hesitates, throat bobbing with a heavy swallow as she weighs her options. Dorothea almost wonders if she’s overstepped, but relief washes over her quickly when Edelgard’s hand slides over her side and against her back. “Here,” she murmurs, pulling the blankets over them both.

“Thank you.”

Edelgard nods, and they’re so close that the hum of acknowledgement she gives rumbles against Dorothea’s cheek. “Rest. I’ll be here when you wake.”

The fact that she has to say as much tells Dorothea that she’ll definitely be gone by morning. It’s the same with every suitor she’s ever entertained, and there’s no reason to think a mysterious Duchess will be any different. She tucks her head underneath Edelgard’s chin nonetheless, taking the opportunity to pull her as close as possible before she slips away. Although her eyes drift shut almost immediately, she’s certain the last thing she feels before sleep finds her is the gentle press of lips against her forehead.

Dorothea sleeps well, for once in her life.

* * *

“You foolish, stupid,  _ idiotic _ —”

A heavy thud against the other side of the bedroom wall is enough to rouse both of them in an instant. Edelgard vaults over Dorothea in one swift motion, her strength obviously back in full as she rips the bandages from her torso and heads straight for the door. Dorothea does her best to follow, still feeling a bit faint as she stumbles out behind her.

Ingrid’s chair outside the door is empty, and a quick glance to the end of the hallway reveals the stablemaster’s predicament. She’s been pinned against the wall by a woman of much smaller stature, and while Ingrid does her best to kick her away the enemy’s grip is much too firm around her neck.

“Lysithea!” Once again, the roar from the alleyway seeps into Edelgard’s voice as she shouts her reprimand. The other white-haired woman freezes in place, red eyes darting over her shoulder to lock on Edelgard and Dorothea both.

“El!” Lysithea is quick to drop Ingrid on the spot and rush to the Duchess’s side while the stablemaster coughs and sputters. The hug of greeting that one normal friend would give the other is abandoned, and Lysithea wastes no time in snatching the hem of Edelgard’s nightshirt and hauling it upwards.

Dorothea averts her eyes at the sight, feeling modest even though she’s seen much more in her treatment. Thankfully, Edelgard had managed to slip on the pair of Ingrid’s trousers left for her at some point during the night, and all that’s revealed is the faintest hint of a silver-tinged scar on her abdomen.

“Oh, for the love of—”

Edelgard raises a hand to cut her off before she can even start, and it surprisingly stops her friend long enough to let the Duchess get a word in. “It’s fine, Lysithea. It’s healed.”

“What, did you kill the attacker or something? Drain him right then and there? Hubert was convinced you wouldn’t be able to find any—” Lysithea’s sentence breaks off and she stiffens, as if she’s just noticed something very out of place. Her eyes flick from Edelgard to Dorothea, and it takes mere seconds for her to focus on the dried blood that flakes off onto her dress. “Ah, I see. That’s a surprise.”

Dorothea isn’t quite sure what to make of her tone, especially when it suggests the development is anything  _ but _ a surprise at this point. 

Lysithea shrugs it off quickly, turning her attention back to Edelgard. “Hubert’s worried sick and Ferdinand’s about to pull together half the town to look for you. We need to get back to the estate.”

“Of course. We can set out at once.” Edelgard pauses when she hears a cough from the other side of the hallway. She glances over her shoulder at Ingrid, still propped up against the nearest wall and still glaring at Lysithea for all she’s worth. “Or I suppose we  _ could _ have, had you not decided to cripple their stablemaster.”

Lysithea quite literally bares her teeth at her friend, nose wrinkled in annoyance. “ _ Excuse _ me for being worried about your safety when your scent’s all over her.”

“Mm,” is the only reply given in return, though it’s not hard to see how Edelgard softens a bit at concern.

“I’ll take care of Ingrid,” Dorothea volunteers, and when both women turn their eerie gazes on her she feels a shudder down her spine. She had thought herself used to them by now, but apparently her guard is much easier to break when  _ two  _ supernatural beings are on the other side. “She won’t say a word, I promise.”

Lysithea’s bright red eyes lock on Dorothea’s, expression unreadable save for the slightest brow raise that anybody without acting experience would’ve easily missed. She nods, short and something like a “thank you”, but offers nothing else before she loops her arm in Edelgard’s. “Let’s get going, then. It reeks around here.”

Edelgard shakes her head, pulling away from her friend and standing strong against the irate glare that follows. “Lys, wait a moment,” she says, and turns to face Dorothea one last time. She smiles back at Edelgard, a bit weak but determined not to let her know. The Duchess takes one of her hands in her own, and Dorothea can’t help but think about how it hadn’t been too long ago that just a simple touch had made Edelgard flinch away.

“Thank you, Dorothea. For everything.” For just a moment, Dorothea thinks she might lean in for a kiss. She doesn’t miss the way that the Duchess’s eyes stray to the puncture wounds on her collarbone, instead. She _definitely _doesn't miss the concerned crease of the brow that follows. Edelgard squeezes her hand. “I’ll be in touch. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took about five months, but here we are! My favorite chapter so far and one I wanted to really, really make sure how to get right. If you're reading this, thanks for sticking with me this long. At this rate we might just get this fic finished just before FE3H hits its 20th anniversary!


End file.
